First, a warm welcome to Flyertalk!

olafman offers some wise advice. The trick to flying up-front inexpensively is to find these unique opportunities to accrue mileage cheaply and in large numbers.

But you're in luck. InsideFlyer, the sister publication to Flyertalk, is running a suitable deal right now. Here's the math for one round-trip ticket in first class on British Airways or American Airlines from JFK or BOS to LHR. Incidently, for the same price, you can fly Concorde in one or both directions:

• Visit http://www.insideflyer.com/starwood and purchase 21 subscriptions to InsideFlyer at $59.95 each, for a total cost of $1259
• You'll receive 2500 Starwood Preferred Guest points for each subscription purchased, for a total of 52,500 Starwood points
• Open a frequent flyer account with Qantas.
• Transfer your Starwood points to Qantas. They offer a 2:1 redemption ratio, and will give you 5K Starwood points for every 20K of Starwood points you transfer, leaving you with a grand total of 125,000 Qantas points
• Redeem these Qantas points for a first-class award. Total cost of ticket: $1259.

You can do exactly the same thing in business class for 100,000 Qantas points (although without the option of Concorde, obviously). That'll cost you 16 subscriptions to Flyertalk, or $959. Everything else works exactly the same.

If you donate the magazines to registered charities, they become tax-deductible, leaving your actual cost for the tickets even lower.

Hope this helps.