Originally Posted by
suetibu
So, if I understand correctly - I will have more chances to get business level award seats (with no fuel surcharge) from NY to Europe on Star Alliance?
I would concur with that. In distant second place, I'd put Delta miles, since you can redeem on Air France cheaply to get to Europe and availability tends to be ok.
You should be thinking about not only which cards give you miles in a particular program but how, exactly, you will earn enough of those miles to actually redeem for a ticket. US requires 100k miles for round trip US-Europe in business class, per person. The US card will get you 40k miles. How will you earn the other 60k?
With the possibility of US airways leaving Star Alliance do you think I will be able to transfer to something else (??) as soon as I get the points?
If you earn an airline's own miles, you generally can't transfer them to another airline ever. This is different in something like Amex Membership Rewards. You're earning Amex's own points, so you can transfer them where ever Amex lets you.
You'll also want to research how award tickets work for infants. Different airlines have different policies, from a simple small $ fee to requiring an additional full award redemption.