I've been looking for a Visa/MC airmiles reward card for my business. I was preapproved for the Chase OnePass card. My closest airport is LAX, so I can use pretty much any airline. I currently use the Delta Skymiles program and have found it easy to use and the agents to be very good about finding me the Skysaver awards so I can travel for as few miles as possible. Do you find Continental to be fairly easy to get the lowest mile travel awards? Are the agents good about finding you routes to insure the lowest miles? How far in advance is recommended to book award travel?

While I think Onepass is a great program, it all depends on your flying pattern. All of Continental's flights out of Los Angeles will go to one of three hubs; Houston, Newark, or Cleveland, OR Honolulu. For shorter flights, Continental isn't the best airline of choice.

Onepass is a member of Skyteam, Alaska Airlines, and a select other partners. Within the US, you can accrue miles on Alaska, Delta, and Northwest, but amongst them, there is no or limited service for flights within California. So if the route pattern is what you look for, I'd choose another.

Getting award travel booked is also difficult. Some of us consider it, "Nonepass" as they have experienced difficulty in finding saver space. While I don't disagree with that statement, it can be difficult if you are not flexible on your travel dates.

If your flying habit is frequent, Onepass might be a program for you. Once you attain an elite status, flying 25,000 miles or more within the program year, you will attain status. Members of high frequent flyer status is rewarded with complimentary upgrade for flights within the domestic 48 states. With great choice of meals on domestic first class, and excellent Continental flights, they really knows how to treat its customers well.

Finally, you had mentioned that you are pre-approved for the Chase credit card. I believe Continental is offering 5% discount for booking with this credit card. If that is a sufficient benefit for you, maybe it might be worth a try.

Jiburi

I don't fly a lot. I just accumulate miles on my credit card then take a nice international trip every year or two. But when I do cash in my miles, I like to do it for the lowest amount possible. I checked a few options on the Continental site yesterday. For example, I could find the lowest mile fare (25,000) from LAX to CDG. Searching for the return flight, I could find an option to get the 25,000, but when I clicked the button it would say "This flight is no longer available". This happens on both examples (one to CDG, one to FRA) that I tried. That's pretty aggravating. I guess it's not a good sign when I haven't even signed up yet and I'm already aggravated!

One Pass is an excellent program. However, they don't let people join. You are free to join NonePass, which is exactly the same, except awards are difficult to get. (Actually, they are much easier if you are willing to pay double the amount of miles).

Seriously, domestic coach seats are hard to get year round. Off peak US to Europe are easy to get during unpopular months (such as February).

Did your stay include a Sat night? That's required for std awards, but rules aren't applied until you try to book. You could also try calling - they can put an itinerary on hold for 10 days, and have access to partner flights not visible on the web site.

Why limit yourself to one frequent flyer program? Why not obtain the Stardwood American Express card which would give you more options when planning your trip?

If you go the route of the Continental credit card when you're ready to make your reservations you will be limited to CO and their partners. If you were to obtain the Amex Starwood card you would then have the option of callimg almost any airline you choose (between the airlines in the Starwood program, and their partners you can go almost anywhere in the world).

As a bonus, or another reason for picking the Starwood Amex - when you transfer 20,000 points to any airline they give you a 5,000 point bonus.

Hope this helps.

We don't call it NonePass� for nuthin'.

More seriously, my most recent experience booking a NonePass� reward trip came up with the only EasyPass rewards available on Continental at 50,000 miles, but I was able to get flights on Delta in First Class (It really isn't, but that's another topic) for 45,000 miles.

Well I guess I would say that it WAS an excellent program that slipped to Good and the jury is still out on where its heading.

For regular members the earlier comments sum it up - awards are getting harder to find. I'm a Silver Elite and had to have about a 1 month flexibility window to make my next vacation work.

For Elites its also getting a little tight. They put on restrictions that cut your Elite qualifying miles to 50% if you fly on discount tickets. (which even many business travelers get now with ever tightening budgets) There is an exception if you book on CO.com (but CO reserves the right to remove that exception at will and a lot of companies require booking through particular agents/sites). Additionally even if you do get elite status they shrank the FC sections to some of the smallest in the industry (6 seats on some 737s) so getting upgrades for that status is even harder.

I used to really brag about OnePass - it was so fun to mock the AA flyers having to ration thier stickers. At this point though I just don't know.

On a general level though you gotta give CO some points. They still have newer planes and bigger bins than most carriers and they are the last major that passes out something resembling food at mealtime.

If your main travel is credit card miles - go with another program -like suggested above (none airline). But you will be better off booking non CO reward travel. I you plan 330 days out, most airlines first load their reward inventory at that time. CO does not - and is not predictable.

I have the Starwood card- LUV IT! But not all of my suppliers accept AMEX, so I'm looking for a MC/Visa. From the stellar reviews of the OnePass program on this board, I think I'll pass. Thanks for the advice, everyone!!

Good?

Well this year (past month actually) got std economy class from Europe to US for relative, 2 B/F rewards to Hnl. Excellent!

However, I was platinum for about 4 yrs then down to gold and maybe this year will not even make gold by about 5,000 miles. This is due to only 50% of miles on flights that I must purchase through my corporate travel dept. If I could buy online and get 100% - no problem. Not so good!

Alternatives? not so great choices between bankrupcies and maybe points being of no value, less convenient flight schedules

So, I'll stick with continental