You might look into accumulating American Airlines miles. You can upgrade to business class to India for 40,000 miles each way plus a fee of $300. So with your credit card spend it would be pretty easy to get the 80,000 miles each year for a round-trip upgrade to India (plus the $600).

Incidentally, you mentioned upgrading to First Class on Continental. I believe they only have business class on those flights. it is pretty well impossible to upgrade all the way from economy to real First Class on long-haul international flights.