In my limited experience, LH is very stingy with releasing premium cabin seats for UA/CO awards, because their product is much better than what UA is offering (I remember reading somewhere that they don't even release A340, 777 or 747 premium cabin space at all). Y awards seem to be available though. An alternative would be AC, I see some saver awards in business for 50k one way.
Star Alliance upgrades with miles is a possibility, though in most cases you have to buy full fare economy tickets to be eligible, which is often as expensive as discount business class. If you dig around the UA website looking for Star Alliance upgrade awards you'll find more details.

Um, really? I'm looking at CO.com right now and see plentiful LH J space on ORD-FRA on a 747 in November. LH is stingy about F award space, and generally you can't get it with partner miles more than two weeks in advance, but LH J is not all that hard to get with UA/CO miles if you book in advance from what I've read and my explorations on CO.com. Further, I'm not sure I'd agree that LH's hard product (angled flat with no clear plan to update) is much better than the UA/CO product that's either full flat or on its way there. Of course, soft product is probably better most of the time you compare a non-US carrier to a US carrier.

I think Flenser should be fine using these points to transfer to UA and redeem on LH if able to plan ahead. (There are also other *A partners that could be used to cross the pond that might offer a comparable or even better experience to LH, depending on what you think is most important.)

Now I'm directionless again. :)

Am I better off just using the Chase Mall site to book my flights and apply points towards the purchase? That sounds more straightforward, at least.

You should be able to get more bang for your points by transferring them to United (1 UR point = 1 UA mile), as 100,000 UA miles is a round-trip in business from the US to Europe. You can do it on LH if you find seats. If you don't have enough points for two tickets, use points for one and buy the other (since it sounds like you're accustomed to buying). Haven't run the numbers on what the points could get you in terms of purchase discount, but probably not as good, especially when you factor in that you can use your UA miles from flying to combine with the UR points.

Availability is similar to all star partners (seems that stat blocking is not an issue any more). However, since LH revamps their F class and reducing the number of seats from 16 to 8 in many of the planes, F availability is low for everyone (even for LH members, just go to LH board and read all about it) - unless you book 2-3 week prior to the travel date where they are released. C availability was never a problem with LH.

Is there any way , or has anyone been successful in getting the 50K bump after being denied one time via SM via this language:

"The 100,000 enrollment bonus offer is only available to
the select number of people the offer was sent to who have
had no previous Chase Sapphire account."

I had no previous card ?

But you weren't part of the "select number of people" who never had a previous card ;)

You can always try again

Are the bonus UR credited in the statement after you complete the spend requirement?

I got my card a few weeks ago, met the $3K spend requirement the next day, and had my signup bonus points within a couple of weeks. YMMV.

What retention bonuses have been offered on this card?

Please see this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...all-cards.html

Booked a trip to Maui (hotel, airfare and rental car) through our corporate travel agent and got all my points, so I'm happy about that. I thought they're might be a hitch with the transaction so I'm glad to see it recognized it as a travel purchase.

Got the card the first week of January... spent the minimum $3K by the third week... but it did take a couple of weeks for the 50K point bonus to show up. And even then, it took several more days to show up in the UR site, even though I could see them in the online banking site. The points appearing in our account did not seem to coincide with the statement closing.

So I got the points but it was by no means instantaneous. Not a big deal for me but if I wanted to use those points right away, I would've been out of luck.

I got instant approval, applying through the Chase website...

Just got my card in the mail. Approved instantly online. Working towards my minimum spending limit. So far, I'm a fan!

Just got approved for one of these and have a question (sorry if this was already answered, it's a long thread).

If you book a flight through Chase Ultimate Rewards will you:
a) earn frequent flier miles for the airline you choose when you pay with your card
b) earn frequent flier miles for the airline you choose when you pay with points
c) not earn any frequent flier miles