Has anyone had success getting Bonaire flights through Houston using for the standard air miles charge of 35,000 miles verses their "easy pass" miles charge of double that amount. I just can not bring myself to pay 70,000 mile for coach seats when I can fly first class on AA for 60,000. I have tried a lot of different dates and times of the year and all tickets come up requiring the 70,000 miles.

Since it’s started flying the Houston-Bonaire route, Continental has released ffm seats for the inflated price of 70,000 miles. The question is, what is the definition of "Blackout Period"? "Period" is a stretch of time measured in weeks, not years, which is exactly what Continental is doing on this route. Continental is forcing customers to redeem miles at inflated prices because they know customers will oblige since routes to Bonaire are so limited.
A class action suit has recently been filed against Delta for abuse of the ffm program. Below is the link. Check it out and you’ll see that Continental is guilty of some of the same practices.
http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/o2.php?key=59

Continental has two tiers of rewards. If you are an elite member, you can probably get the reward for 17,500 miles each way. If not you will most likely pay double that... we are flying down via Curacao and I got a ticket for 35,000 miles RT while my wife who is not elite paid 17,500 miles down and 35,000 back.
Each year they make it harder and harder to get good deal on miles. Guess they forgot loyalty goes both ways.

So if your using your ffm is it better to fly into Aruba or curacao? What's the charge for those two islands?

William
More options on flights are available to Aruba and CUR but obviously there are more connections and the cost of the ticket to get to BON. It would just be nice to get "full value" for the ffm. I have not found the low ffm miles on Continental to Aruba or CUR either but can usually get the CUR on AA in the rare cases they have higher miles or no ffm seats to BON.

Before Dec 15th Continental from Cleveland Ohio to Curacao (via EWR) is $511. incl tax.
Divi to Bonair is around 100.00 r/t.
Difference is we get to Bonaire by 4 PM and do not have to leave until late morning. With AA we would get in around 9 pm if we got lucky (and maybe with our luggage, maybe not) and we would have to get up before the sun to go back to San Juan.
Cost is about 150.00 more, so if cost means more than convenience then AA via San Juan is probably the way to go. Or AJ if you can catch their early morning USA departures.

The only standard award (35,000) I have seen on Continental have involved flying through Newark. I bit the bullet earlier this year and booked Easypass tickets Austin to Bonaire on Continental, coach for me and first for the wife for the late January timeframe.

As it turned out, it was a deal as I recently had the opportunity to rebook my trip to travel over Christmas and New Years (after they released these flights for reward travel) and only paid a $35 change fee per ticket. The coach seats for these flights were going for nearly $2 grand at the time.