Mileage Plus, Kris Flyer or another program??

[goskan]

Hi,
I am not sure what to do at the moment. I have been with Qantas for a number of years (80s and 90s), accumulated points mainly via credit cards and flew on economy award once a year to NZ and once in 10 years to the USA. Then the rules changed and I am sitting now on about 180,000 mostly useless Qantas FF points. I tried few times to use them on an award flight but each time the cost of taxes and extra charges was higher than the cheapest airfare! The only time that the charges were a bit less was flying from Toronto to New York (weird).

6 years ago my travelling patterns changed and I joined Mileage Plus. I have also got more interested in flying business class. I am currently flying once a year to US/Canada and once to Europe. My strategy has been to pay for the cheapest business class in Star Alliance (usually Thai, this year Singapore Airlines) to Europe, put miles into Mileage Plus and then buy economy ticket to North America with UA on the assumption that I can upgrade to business using miles earned from Europe. So far this strategy has worked but I am now concerned about the changes.

I am also a member of KrisFlyer (no miles yet as this year's flight will go to Mileage Plus via Star Alliance) and have been accumulating points on Citibank Visa which I can transfer into Krisflyer.

Is anyone in a similar situation with similar objectives? If yes what would be the best strategy now in view of all the changes? The problem is that I can use upgrades on Krisflyer only if I also put the actual miles there not just Visa points. That leaves me with no upgrade opportunities for the US/Canada trip.

Any other combination of FF programs that would give me the best result for my requirements?

In anticipation of insights from this learned community :-)
G

[auriga]

What are the changes you are referring to?

[goskan]

All recent changes to Mileage Plus and the current state of FF programs, UA being in financial trouble etc. A lot has changed since I joined Mileage Plus 6 years ago.
Thanks.