Hi,
I am completely lost with what to do with our mileage program.
Here is the story, I am not completely illerate with FF miles, but things seems to be so bad right now, I dont know which way to go.

We fly to france at least once a year, sometimes twice. We either go to Paris or Marseille.We like Air france a lot, I don't like to go through Amsterdam the transfer sucks. I like going through Madrid because my sister lives there but frankly not a big fan of AA..

We used to have Citi credit card and redeem for flight for 60,000 points.
That is gone, and now very expensive to fly to Marseille (120,000 on average, 1 point for 1 cent)
plus cashback sucks

Hubby also has 65,000 miles on united, but it is not a great airline for france, so expensive too. probably we will use these for domestic flights rewards

We went for BA credit cards bonus (great) but fees are outrageous ($850 for 2 flights) and there is NO availability whatsoever..because of all the promo, plus all the strikes.. tried booking xmas and next may (2011) .. nothing

So what should be my strategy? we are used to get about a couple of free flights every year or so. with our credit cards mostly . I like not spending $2400 on 1 week "vacation-marathon"to see the family. We usually use miles for that and spend money on real trips

Are these days simply over?
spending is highly on groceries, dining

If you like AF and your goal is to use your miles to get to France, why wouldn't you look at a SkyTeam partner like Delta? AF of course has many options direct into Paris with no European connections.

Where are you based?

Thanks,
we are based in chicago. Never thought about delta as an option. Delta flights never really show up on my radar from chicago.
USually my options are KLM/Air france or AA/iberia

You can earn the miles on Delta (either through flights or credit card miles) and redeem them on Air France or KLM. AF has a couple of directs from O'Hare to Paris daily.

ok thanks for all that. The only issue i came up with this was that delta seems to only offer Amex. Now that is not always great because that then means that i have to have 2 cards.. they dont take amex in europe.

Anyway around that?

"that means I have to have two cards!"

Boy, are you talking to the wrong crowd!

Isn't that the truth!

There used to be a Northwest Worldperks Visa that earned Skyteam miles, but I think that was discontinued after the Delta merger. I'm not sure if the other Skyteam partners offer a Visa/Mastercard for US residents... but I would bet someone on this board would know for sure.

If carrying only one card is important to you, you might also consider the United Mileage Plus Visa from Chase. It won't earn you miles to use on AF, but UA has daily flights direct from ORD to CDG. And if that doesn't work, both UA and other Star Alliance partners (Continental, US Air) have flights to CDG with connections in the US rather than Europe. The miles can also be used on Lufthansa as well.