BMI is ABSOLUTELY the way to go. Let's put it this way - you get 20,000 miles for signing up for the free card, and another 20,000 miles if you later take out the £60 annual fee card. That is enough in itself for a 'cash and miles' business class return trip - 37,500 miles plus £210 plus tax to the US or South Africa (SAA is now in *A, remember)! What more could you want?!?!

The BMI award table can be downloaded from the BMI website.

Star Alliance award availability is EXCELLENT to most place, especially to Asia where BA is weak. If you want to fly to BKK, for example, your options would include Thai ex-London, LH via FRA, possibly Swiss or Austrian and SQ via SIN. You can also route on, for example, LH to FRA and then Thai to BKK. Where you will have problems is to leisure destinations like Barbados or, oddly, Miami, since LH does not do 'bucket and spade' routes and you will be forced onto UA or US Airways.

I personally used BMI miles to go First Class on LH to HK (back from Beijing) in May, and we are hoping to get to Thailand / Langkawi in the New Year.

One other thing worth remembering ..... both BA and BMI allow one-way redemptions. Your 20,000 miles credit card sign-up is enough for a one-way BMI business class ticket to the US (18,750 miles + £105 + tax). You can then come back using BA Miles if necessary. This can be a useful tool - for example, BA availability TO the Far East is usually rubbish, but there are often a lot more seats coming back. Doing the outbound on Star Alliance can make it easier to get the dates you want.

As PhilH says, the ANA website is great for checking availability across all *A carriers.

Here is an example of award availability I have in my desk (this list is now 2 weeks old but will still be very close). Looking at flying to Singapore between 5-22 January, I can get 2 first class seats on LH (via Fra) EVERY DAY except for Jan 14th.

One downside of Star Alliance redemption in general is (apart from SAA, Air New Zealand to LAX and HKG and, possibly, Air Canada's new J) slopey lie-flat seats in Business. If you want a proper flat bed then you have to go for F on most *A carriers.