I am in the process of redeeming a 200K award from Marriott (just waiting for some Amex points to post). I was waiting to see how the US/UA merger would work out, but have decided to get the reward now. (I need the hotel portion of the award for May and the 'rumble' about Marriott changing requirements for this award has made me nervous).

I have a bit of a quandry. I can't decide where to put the 120K miles from this award. I am 2nd tier elite with US, but the way this award is structured, I would not get the full 120K if I send the miles to US. I am not elite with any other airline.

My primary purpose in accruing these miles would be use them on long-haul (Asia, South Pacific, Africa) FC tickets for my wife and myself Essentially, my choices are United, Delta, American or Continental.

I have just a few miles with United and if the merger doesn't go through, the miles would be orphaned. I have the ability to accrue more miles on AA, CO, and DL and currently have 10K miles on CO, 70K miles on AA and will soon have 100K miles on DL. I have only flown US metal for the last several years and accrued these miles through other programs (A big thanks to everyone here).

So, my question is this. Where should I put the miles? I've done some checking of the various awards available, both the named airlines and their partners and alliances but still can' t decide. It's amazing how complicated this is when considering all the possibilities.

What do you think?