I was able to book a flight using CO miles.
It was not fun though. I learned a couple things.

The Continental website is better than United's.

The United/Continental phone system is a new low in customer service.
No exaggeration, it can take over 3 hours to get to the correct department. It has to be hurting their business.


Delta's website is almost unusable because of the errors and the help desk is clueless. (I already knew it would be very hard to find Delta low tier awards)