While I am incredibly happy to be getting formally engaged soon to a woman I love more than anything, I am hoping that someone on FT has a good idea on how I can mitigate the $6-7K hit I'm going to take on buying a lil' ol rock by at least earning miles for the purchase. Any ideas?

Much like certain airlines nowadays, I am facing a liquidity crunch and will most likely be putting this purchase on a credit card and carrying a balance of about 1/2 the value as I pay it off the remainder over the course of 6 months to a year. Unlike certain airlines, bankruptcy protection is somethng I'd rather avoid - I'm not expecting a gov't bailout. Putting it on a high-interest rate WorldPerks Visa or the like for the long haul wouldn't make much fiscal sense, but I'd love to find a way to earn miles for such a big purchase. I dont' care on what carrier, but I'd prefer to get 'em on NW, AA, KE, OZ, UA, or DL.

The only thing that I could think of so far is to buy the ring on my WorldPerks Visa, pay off the amount that I can with my cash on hand, and then do a balance transfer for the rest to a 0% for the first year card or something. My other ideas involved just getting a cheaper ring ( heh - not what I want to do. And by I, I mean she. ) or using a reward ticket to go somewhere in Africa and smuggle a cheap stone back rather uncomfortably.

Any and all suggestions welcome!

Thanks!

peace,
~Ben~