I just read through all of the replies and instead of replying to each I want to thank everyone for the different suggestions. Very helpful.

For us, the cost of keeping the miles, transferring or otherwise, is just not worth it. We also just read an article on another website that Emirates just recently devalued their mileage - requiring more miles for certain flights, etc.

So the second part of my inquiry is: Is there a way to use these miles before they expire? Buy something or some other use instead of trying to keep the miles?

Thanks again -