US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - If US goes, what will become of the Clubs?

Bets are on!

When TW went, its life club members were only periferally recongnized by the AA club. (We got the option to renew every year at the exec plat level. If we fail to renew for a year, membership will go to whatever elite level we are).

Other airlines have absorbed lifetime memberships. (PA Clippers got lifetime DL CRC. EA Ionosphere members got lifetime CO memberships).

What do you think will happen to life US members if the airline doesn't survive?

When they were in merger talks with UA a couple of years back, UA announced members would get lifetime RCC memberships.

But this is a different situation.

Thoughts?

Since I just renewed my US Club membership for 3 years....I'd really love to hear the answer to this one!!!

I don't see the point in even speculating this since there is no known entity taking over US Clubs. If it happens, we'd need to look at the track record of the buyer (if there is one). It's best to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it's better.

All these airline 'lifetime' memberships are only for the "LIFE" of the program - not the member. So, given the turbulent airline industry of the past 20 years, I'd never pay for any lifetime memberships of any kind.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">If US goes, what will become of the Clubs?</font>

Maybe some become TGI Fridays? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

Club memberships of any term length, I would imagine, would only transfer to another company if that company took over all of US Airways.

Let's say another carrier bought the Shuttle and Boston, for instance. There's no way they could say "We'll honor US Airways Clubs life memberships for customers who primarily use Clubs at BOS and LGA and DCA."

Not only is there no club membership-fee revenue incentive for them to do so, US would be unlikely to turn over a list of the users who patronize those clubs since whatever parts of US survive would want to keep that Boston passenger when he goes to somewhere you could still get to on the smaller US.

If someone buys the whole company, of course, this would be a totally different discussion, but if US is just fragmented, I fear long-term club members may be out of luck.

Glad I didn't renew my membership this week like I had planned.

I seem to remember that a FTer purchased a lifetime membership in the Ansett Golden Wings club (as a method of accessing UA RCCs)... about a week before Ansett went into receivership. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif But that this FTer managed to dispute the charge with his/her credit card company.

What happens with US club memberships depends on what happens with US.

If US liquidates, the clubs go dormant and the memberships are worthless. Clubs may or may not get taken over and rebranded by other airlines. The TGI Fridays guess is entirely possible.

If US is acquired, the acquiring carrier will assume US' obligations. Probably means club memberships are honored.

If the ASSETS of US are acquired without the obligations (e.g. through some sort of bankruptcy proceeding, etc) then it's probabalistic what will happen... a matter of what the acquiring airline thinks they can do to retain US' best customers.