pitflyer - I am sure you are savvy enough to decide what works better for you and which is a better value for you. The Qantas transfer mentioned above may be a reasonable alternative to the AA transfer, considering that you need to transfer 65K Starwood points to Qantas for a business class ticket between US east coast and India, whereas if you used AA miles you would need 150K AA miles for the same ticket (or a 120K Starwood points transfer). But the Qantas transfer ratio is good only for this year.