US Airways Dividend Miles - US Credit Card benefits if United Code and Miles?

Hi all,

Probably a common sense answer to many of you well versed miles gurus but somewhat newer to building up miles and points, so dealing with hopefully easy dilemma.

I have always used my Continental (now United) code when booking *Alliance flights (I typically fly USAir out of DC, and United/Continental for my longer or overseas flights), and for whatever reason have always accrued points using the previously mentioned code. However, I just got the USAir credit card due to what should be weekly travel on USAir, and I'm about to book my first flight. As I signed up for the USAir card, I just got a new Dividend Miles number, but am not sure if I should use that as my frequent flyer number or my United number.

Does it matter which one I use? Will I not get priority boarding without the Dividend Miles number? Can I eventually combine my United and USAir points for award travel on *Alliance?

Thanks!

Thread transferred to US Airways forum because the question boils down to, "Can I use the benefits of a US credit card when flying on US while crediting the flight to another airline (UA)?"

...Can I eventually combine my United and USAir points for award travel on *Alliance?


You cannot transfer miles between the UA and US programs. You need to choose where you want to acumulate.

As noted, you cannot combine your points.

I would suggest you use your USAir DM number. If you are traveling that often, you can probably earn elite status on USAir which will get you other perks.

I am not entirely sure how this works, but you might contact US about a "Status Challenge." Usually you would have to fly 25K miles in a year to make silver and 50K to make gold. Let's say you are flying to Boston and back every week, about 800 miles RT. You will probably not even make silver by the end of the year. Sometimes they will give you Silver "Trial Status" and let you keep it if you fly a certain amount, or let you earn Silver if you fly, say, 10000 miles in 3 months. The length of your filghts may be key here. US only gives actual miles flown to non-elites, so if you were not elite, you would only get 400 miles for a flight to Boston, while if you were elite you would get the full 500. On the other hand, if you are flying transcon, you will get to Silver in a matter of a month and a half.

If you will truly be flying weekly, I'd contact Dividend Miles and see what they can do for you. They can be accommodating for someone who is really going to be a regular customer.

US Airways does not do status matches or challenges (except for cases thats its part of a corporate contract). You can however do a paid preferred trial which gives you temporary elite status and a "expedited" means to longer lasting elite status.

Let's say you are flying to Boston and back every week, about 800 miles RT. You will probably not even make silver by the end of the year.

I'm a newb myself to all this, but I'm pretty sure truly weekly flying would make it easy to qualify based on segments the regular way (i.e. without signing up for trial) - 30 for silver, 60 for gold, etc. So, OP could reach silver in 15 weeks. On trial preferred, it's 10 segments for silver, 20 segments for gold. So depending on actual flight frequency, gold might be possible in the 90 days.

Let's say you are flying to Boston and back every week, about 800 miles RT. You will probably not even make silver by the end of the year.

Minor point, but the DCA-BOS shuttle flights get the 500 mile minimum for each segment. It would be 1,000 miles round trip.