Originally Posted by JD8808

Thanks for all the fast responses. I'm going to show my ignorance here, but what is *A? Star alliance?

I wanted to use a partner airline because I thought they were generally a better product, and also something different (I can fly United anytime). I only travel overseas maybe once a year, so something different (and hopefully better) would be nice. But if there was a good UA flight that worked, I'd be happy with that. My main concern, as most of you guessed, is the flat seat.

So assuming I would be happy with business class on United, is there generally availability using FF miles? I am pretty flexible with dates, so I just want to make sure that there isn't something that makes it really hard to redeem CO miles for international J class seats. I read a little about United's policy of Starnet blocking, and just wanted to make sure that doesn't happen on Continental. Seeing no mention of it, I assume I should be good. Now I'll switch everything to my new CO card (just got the 50k mile offer) and I'll have enough miles for my flight in no time. Thanks again.