I called Global Impact and they answered the phone in 2 minutes. I spoke with a very friendly agent who first suggested an AA flight (logical, since I wanted to fly PDX-DFW), but readily agreed to look up a connecting CO flight (equal in price to the AA flight) and booked me on my desired flights: 21DEC PDX-IAH-DFW and 26DEC DFW-IAH-PDX for 25,000 points. She believes these flights earn FF miles but cannot guarantee. I looked up my reservation at continental.com and the tickets are booked into mileage-earning fare classes. These are the same tickets that were available at Orbitz and Travelocity and Continental.com for $319 + $31.80 taxes. They charged me $54.06 in taxes.

I can't believe how different this experience was from my previous attempt. Bizarre but a big ^ to GI Travel! If we earn miles it would be a bonus, but even without, 25,000 points for holiday travel is a great deal.

Award type: 25k economy w/i lower 48 states
Date: December 21-26 2005
Number of days redeemed in advance of trip: 75 days
Lowest prevailing price: $351 (incl taxes; AA or CO)
Airline redeemed on: CO
Prevailing price for booked flight: $351
Taxes charged by Global Impact: $54
Earned full miles: we'll see.
Fare class of flights: U, I, W