Thanks for the replies everyone, and sorry for the delay in replying. I was out of town for long weekend.

aeneas3: Child is old enough to be trusted to be left alone, but we dont want to do that. Want to do vacation as a family. No worries about the typos.

KennyBSAT: Thanks for the link about how to keep miles from expiring and also on dining points. We do not eat out often, but just for getting extra life into miles, it wont hurt to eat out sometime

Mwenenzi: Will do. I think the only points that I am worried about are, AMEX MR's. I definitely plan to cancel that card. No need to pay such high AF (actually I dont even know how much it is, plan was always to cancel the card). I am thinking of keeping Chase Ink..not sure yet, need to decide what I want to do with those URs.

beachmouse: Thanks for opinion club link and about e-miles. I will definitely sign up for emiles and will try to do that opinion club too. Looks like it takes lot of time to get some miles, but it is worthwhile than having expired miles )

guv1976: Will do (check each airline's web page to see how to earn or redeem miles).

I might have to go to India (next week) for family issue, not sure yet. Now, time to decide, if I use my United miles or pay cash (I mean using credit card ). It will take about 110,000 miles (RT) for economy travel. If it was business or first class, then I would use miles in a heartbeat. Any tricks? I followed that arrow guys blog guide for India ticket, but no luck. Did multiple destination search, and it would cost more than 110,000 miles with a simple search on United site.