American Airlines / US Airways merger

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I received the dreaded email from US Airways informing that they are leaving Star Alliance on March 30, 2014 and joining oneworld. I have about 49,000 Dividend Miles carefully collected over years of travel to use on Star Alliance airlines in the future, and come April they will all be dragged away into stupid oneworld :(

Does anyone know if there is any way to salvage these miles? (I collected 90% of them on Star Alliance carriers, I am not some US Airways fanatic)

On related note, I also have about 5,000 AAdvantage miles sitting around. Will there be an opportunity to combine 49,000 Dividend Miles and 5,000 AAdvantage miles into a combined 54,000 WhateverTheyWillCallTheCombinedProgram miles?
 
Does anyone know if there is any way to salvage these miles?
Spend them on *A flights before they leave the alliance. Any tickets awarded remain in good standing after the switch.

On related note, I also have about 5,000 AAdvantage miles sitting around. Will there be an opportunity to combine 49,000 Dividend Miles and 5,000 AAdvantage miles into a combined 54,000
If history is anything to go by you'll have a combined 54k usable with OneWorld, which at this point is probably is a more useful alliance than Star anyhow, at least in the practical sense. Star airlines just seem to make up their own rules as they go along. Almost as if the alliance was disbanded and reformed every couple years with new rules and restrictions. Who needs that? There was a time when *A was great for points arbitrage, take easy to earn points from a US program and spend them on fancy Asian airlines with much better service, but those days are being written out of existence by the bureaucrats. Meanwhile that's still possible with OW. I never found a purpose for SkyTeam on the points side. Not for earning, not for burning, not for status, not for anything. Some of the SkyTeam airlines actually have good onboard service, but most of their frequent flyer memberships seem to be treated like a reluctant afterthought.
 
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To each his own. I am Executive Platinum on AA and have flown extensively on OW partners since the alliance was created. Works fine for me. I'm sure that eventually Dividend Miles will be merged into Advantage with pooling of miles, just like NW+DL and CO+UA (I still have miles earned on Eastern Airlines in Mileage Plus). The downside is that award levels are certain to be raised soon.
 
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I received the dreaded email from US Airways informing that they are leaving Star Alliance on March 30, 2014 and joining oneworld. I have about 49,000 Dividend Miles carefully collected over years of travel to use on Star Alliance airlines in the future, and come April they will all be dragged away into stupid oneworld :(

Does anyone know if there is any way to salvage these miles? (I collected 90% of them on Star Alliance carriers, I am not some US Airways fanatic)

On related note, I also have about 5,000 AAdvantage miles sitting around. Will there be an opportunity to combine 49,000 Dividend Miles and 5,000 AAdvantage miles into a combined 54,000 WhateverTheyWillCallTheCombinedProgram miles?
Book an international flight, burns away your miles fast but it's worth it. 49,000 doesn't sound like a huge a amount compared to the guys with 500,000 or 1,000,000 miles.

Edit: typo
 
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54,000 miles probably won't get you that far these days either. OTOH you could probably get your self a decent hotel night or three or a reasonable gift with it too.
I'm a bit naive since I have never used my miles for anything so far, but won't 54,000 miles give me two roundtrip domestic tickets? Domestic US roundtrip flights are 25,000 miles, isn't it? I have a couple of transcontinental flights planned for this year, each of which would cost around $500, can I get those on miles? Or are there hidden fees or caveats about booking tickets using miles? Should I do it over the phone or online, what works better to get preferred flights on miles?
 
Usually the problem with getting free tickets is getting them when you want them. But yes, I believe you should be able to get a couple of domestic round trips with 54k miles.

I believe you should be able to do the entire booking on line through their reservation portal. But first let them complete the merging of the two systems, and see what the new award levels are. OTOH, you could get one domestic with just th 47k miles or whatever that you have on a single pre-merger airline using the pre-merger awards too.
 
I'm a bit naive since I have never used my miles for anything so far, but won't 54,000 miles give me two roundtrip domestic tickets? Domestic US roundtrip flights are 25,000 miles, isn't it?
Depends on the flight and the day you want to travel. Generally there are round trip saver awards at 25K and standard round trip awards at 50K. AA allows one way trips at half the round trip points cost while US does not.

I have a couple of transcontinental flights planned for this year, each of which would cost around $500, can I get those on miles?
The only way to know is to check for availability and even then it will only be true for that specific moment in time. The next day (or even the next hour) those flights may no longer be available.

Or are there hidden fees or caveats about booking tickets using miles?
You'll be paying taxes and government imposed fees at a minimum. That's been true for as long as I can remember. I currently have six awards ticketed myself. One flight has fees totaling $5 per person while the other flight has fees totaling nearly $150 per person. Both of these flights are of nearly identical distance, costing the same number of points, and ticketed on the same website through the same award program. Some frequent traveler programs now collect fuel surcharges as well, sometimes nearly equalling the cost of buying a ticket outright and completely negating the benefit of collecting miles in the first place. With US or AA fuel surcharges do not apply to domestic flights or to US/AA aircraft traveling abroad.

Should I do it over the phone or online, what works better to get preferred flights on miles?
Since calling the reservations desk almost always incurs an additional fee the only time you want to book an award over the phone is if there is no way to accomplish the same task on the website, which is rare. Unlike with AGR most airline websites have all the rules programmed in and let you book awards on your own without any human involvement. It's quick, easy, and effective. Just make sure you double check your dates and times because if you screw up it can be a painful and costly mistake to correct. These days the only time you need to call anyone is if you're trying to get really creative or you're using domestic points to book a foreign carrier that is impossible to book online. Although it may take years to earn enough points to book anything the actual booking process itself is generally very quick.
 
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For those interested, AA revealed that the original, AA wholly owner subsidiary regional carrier, American Eagle Airlines, Inc., will soon rebrand itself as "Envoy Airlines", a move made to eliminate confusion between the name of that particular carrier, and the generic brand name, American Eagle, that American Airlines is giving to all regional carriers serving it, both wholly owned, or not.

It is ironic that they chose a name that currently depicts premium service on US Airways. Perhaps a better choice would have been "Flagship Airlines", to show it's heritage as both an name used currently by AA to depict premium services, as well as the actual name of one of the former carriers that were consolidated into the original American Eagle Airlines...They did say that US Airways will soon drop the 'Envoy' reference to its premium service.

Prior to the bankruptcy, and US Airways merger, AMR, owner of AA and AE, was trying to divest American Eagle Airlines, but that plan was put on hold (who would buy it?).

Since AA has given certain flights to non wholly owned regional carriers that were formerly operatied by its own regional, they wanted to separate it and even allow it to bid on serving competing carrier's like UA and DL or others, if it could win a contract. Another reason to let it get it's own name. It would have been interesting to see a hypothetic situation with an aircraft painted up as a United Express aircraft, with the small letters 'operated by American Eagle Airlines' on it.....
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Airlines has a good history of all the companies that found their way into the AMR-owned American Eagle, now Envoy. After 1988 when AMR adopted a strategy of acquiring the Eagle operators, there were intermittent situations where an airline not owned by AMR operated American Eagle flights.
IIRC, in those cases, at least in later years, those carrier's, (such as Trans-States), were identified as "American Connection", rather than American Eagle....
 
IIRC, in those cases, at least in later years, those carrier's, (such as Trans-States), were identified as "American Connection", rather than American Eagle....
I think you're right. I don't remember American Connection as a brand being used in the late 80s or early 90s. It happened about the time when Corporate, Chataqua, and Trans-States entered the picture.
 
Yes, Envoy is toast unless they give in. All the EMB-135/40/45 jungle jets will be gone within a few years.

One of Gerard Arpey's failures as AA CEO was that he retained an aging fleet of aircraft for both the mainline operation and the commuter operation. AA kept flying 35-45 seaters while DL was taking a leap forward by getting rid of 50-seaters in favor of larger commuter aircraft. Will take time for Doug to undo that damage.
 
Another step in the US/AA merger is taking place this weekend. The US Airways Dividend Miles (DM) program is being merged into the AAdvantage (AA) program. For members with accounts in both programs, the DM balances are going to the AA account, and for those (like me) who only have a DM account, a new AA account has been opened and everything is moving there. The work started midnight Friday night and is still on-going. By the end of the weekend, US DM will, for all practical purposes, cease to exist. It's a little disconcerting to have a half a million miles disappear for a day, but as of this morning, they are safely back and in their new AA home.

It ls also reported that, on April 8, American and US Airways will receive a Single Operating Certificate from he FAA. Beginning then, from an air traffic control standpoint, all AA and US flights will be AA flights. This means that the venerable "Cactus" ATC call sign for US Airways flights (originally from Phoenix-based America West) will be no more. All AA flights, whether operated by AA or US crews, will now have the "American" call sign for ATC. I'll miss Cactus.

From the public standpoint, the last, and by far the scariest transition, is set to take place later this year. This is when the the US Airways computer reservation system, presently on SHARES, will be moved to the American Airlines system, on SABRE. I'm not aware of one single case where this type of large-scale CRS transition has gone well, and in some cases, total chaos has occurred. When the legacy US transitioned to the America West SHARES system after that merger, nothing worked. It was a complete Charlie Foxtrot that lasted for a week or more. This one is still over six months away, but I'm already breaking into a cold sweat.
 
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AA is taking extraordinary steps to insure as trouble free a transition as possible....they are hiring a large number of additional agents, are setting up a special department to quickly handle any snafu's that result from unforeseen glitches in the transition, and furthermore, are experienced in similar transition's not too far back, when they merged with TWA, as well as the US Air and America West as mentioned. They also learned from some of the problems the Delta-Northwest, and United-Continental mergers encountered....

I would not worry so much about it, but if you are, I can understand. If possible you might want to plan to avoid travel that weekend...
 
i am a DM member and i love US AIR

i am flying on US AIR on april 22 from Detroit to Austin tx

i am not useing AA routes or planes, going threw Charlotte

i want nothing to do with AA
 
i am a DM member and i love US AIR

i am flying on US AIR on april 22 from Detroit to Austin tx

i am not useing AA routes or planes, going threw Charlotte

i want nothing to do with AA
Well, good luck with that. By tomorrow, you will be an AAdvantage member, with nice new number and all. Even on usairways.com, you will open your account into AAdvantage, not Dividend Miles. By this time next year, US Airways will officially be a fallen flag with only a handful of soon to be repainted aircraft and a retro-plane or two to show for it.

I liked US as well (I knew there had to be someone else somewhere), but its days are numbered. I have to say that, so far, AA has been fine. My occasional trips in F show a noticeable upgrade in meal service, and in the back of the bus, having access to AA Main Cabin Extra is very nice. Even the new aircraft livery is growing on me. It certainly is "distinctive." I think I have chilled and now I am just going with the flow.
 
The final public impact piece of the AA/US merger begins Saturday (July 18). The two carriers will merge their computer reservation systems (CRS). The legacy AA system (Sabre) will become the system for the combined airline.

They are approaching this differently than the prior disastrous system migrations by US Airways with America West, and Continental with United. The migration will be phased in over a three month period.

On July 18, all US Airways flights beginning October 17 will be re-designated American Airlines flights. Any existing reservations on the US Airways CRS for travel after October 16 will be migrated to the AA CRS. This forced migration will affect about 4% of all the existing AA/US reservations. Also beginning July 18, any reservation requests on the US Airways website for travel after October 16 will be redirected to the AA website for fulfillment. US Airways travel for trips between July 18 and October 16 will still be booked on the US site and held by the US CRS. As the days count down to October 16, more and more reservations will be made on the AA CRS and fewer and fewer will be made on the US CRS. As of October 17, there will be nothing left on the US CRS, everything will be on the AA CRS and all flights will carry the AA career designation. On the carrier side, overlays are being developed to transition the US agents to the AA system, and new kiosks will be installed to replace the old US versions.

The presumed advantage of this plan is that Instead of every single reservation being migrated or changed at once, only a relative few will require intervention. The rest will disappear by attrition. At least, that's the plan.

I'm not quite as scared as I would have been with an all at once change-over (like UA/CO), but it remains to be seen how this works in practice. The fun begins Saturday. I've got some fall travel to book, and I'm doing it this week.
 
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I'll miss US! :( But because they combined their FFPs and then I got the AA credit card (including the required spend for the bonus), I now have 80K on AA - even thou I last flew AA in the mid 1980's! :)
 
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On July 18, all US Airways flights beginning October 17 will be re-designated American Airlines flights. Any existing reservations on the US Airways CRS for travel after October 16 will be migrated to the AA CRS. This forced migration will affect about 4% of all the existing AA/US reservations.
That number amazes me. Out of all of the open reservations held by US/AA, 96% of them are for travel in the next 2 months?
 
That does not surprise me too much, considering that the lowest fares are generally available about three months before departure! :) why would people unnecessarily lock in higher fares in a non refundable booking?
Airline tickets can move hundreds of dollars in the span of a single day. Over the course of a few weeks or months they can potentially move thousands of dollars. When I make my decision to purchase a ticket it is based on a known and definable price rather than some vague assumption of cost. Maybe in other cultures it's not unusual for working age people to lock in their dates, times, and locations and then sit and wait for months before buying airline tickets, but nobody I know does that. When we're ready to plan we buy. If the cost is too high we choose another location. Most Americans don't have three or four weeks of annual vacation to play around with so they do what they can to make the most of the one or two weeks they do have. Maybe they'll end up leaving some money on the table as a result, but it's not like most folks can move their approved vacation dates around just because the airline prices changed.
 
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