Initial statement: I know this deal is not for everyone but it may help some people!
I am only posting this because I had no idea this can be done and that points can be redeemed for great value business class flights which ends up making the most of all the frequent flyer/credit card points you earn!
As part of wife and I's holiday, we needed to get from Dubai back to Perth, so I thought I'll look at how to get business class flights cheaply.
I was a krisflyer member (Singapore airlines) from a while back but I've only taken one flight with them (had ~20,000 points).
I looked at how much 2 x business class one way tickets were from Dubai - Sin - Perth and turned out to be 106,250 miles so I had another 90,000 or so to go!
I started by signing up to Citibank Signature card (http://www.citibank.com.au/aus/credit_cards/cards_signature.…) which gave me 60,000 citibank points for an annual fee of $299. This equated to 40,000 krisflyer points. This got credited straight away after my first purchase and the transfer to Krisflyer was easy enough. I was up to 60,000 now. After the points got credited, I called them up and asked to be part of the friends and family no annual fee deal which was on ozbargain and I got my $299 annual fee refunded! I still use this card as my primary visa card.
Next was american express. I first signed up for the AMEX Platinum Reserve card (https://www.americanexpress.com/au/content/platinum-reserve-…) which got me 30,000 MR points for an annual fee of $395. Again the points were deposited immediately after my $500 spend was up and transferring to Krisflyer was easy (converted to 30,000 KF miles). I called up after the points were deposited and changed to the AMEX Platinum Edge card as the earning structure is better - they refunded me the $395 and charged me the $195 instead. Funny thing was after my first spend with Platinum edge card - I got another 5,000 points! Then when my wife used the supplementary card ANOTHER 10,000 points were deposited.
I was now up to 105,000 and had a little bit more to so I signed up to the david jones AMEX card ($99 with 30,000 DJ AMEX points). Got the points (which equated to 15,000 KF points) and cancelled the card and got the annual fee refunded.
I had done it! Only needed to cancel one card, the amex and citibank cards are my main visa/amex cards due to their Krisflyer earning rate.
I bought the 2 x business class flights back to perth which are for sale on SQ airlines website for: $5,421!! I paid the 106,250 points + ~$700 taxes.
Hope you can get something out of that post, it was fun doing it and discovering new ways of finding bargains and I hope you enjoy it :)
Nice work wazza, especially with the AMEX transfer - I'm in the process of doing something similar to you, hadn't thought of trying a transfer within AMEX as part of my points strategy (esp if you end up with duplicate and triplicate bonuses!)