(apologies in advance if this is posted in the wrong forum -- I can't actually tell if this issue with my FF account might be a symptom of the US / AA merger.)

In anticipation of moving some of my travel to American, I dug my old FF# out of mothballs to see what the account status was. I expected that any RDMs would've expired long ago as I haven't flown AA for some years, but I did expect that the account would at least indicate lifetime miles flown and the like.

The account was created well before online self-service or even e-mail existed, so I knew I'd have to call AA to associate an e-mail address with the number. This is where things went downhill quickly.

The automated system didn't know what I was talking about when I gave it my number, so I escalated to an agent, who also didn't know what I was talking about. I explained that the number is quite old, and was told that my account was "archived", possibly in November 2013, and didn't exist anymore. I asked if he could see any more detail and was told no. I was then bounced over to their web services team, who didn't know anything about anything. They sent me to the AAdvantage desk (again, unless I was sent to reservations the first time by the AVR -- who can tell?).

After this sorta-HUCA, I got an agent that asked for my number and first name, which I gave. Again told that the account was "archived" (this agent said possibly sometime in 2005?) and that no information was available... but then at one point in this conversation she referred to me by my surname (which I didn't give), so it's clear that at least *some* information about my old account is visible to the CSRs -- there is no way she would've known my last name otherwise.

All I really want is to get back the old number, if possible, and retain the lifetime miles that I've flown on that account. Is there any way to get this back, or someone to escalate the issue to? Has anyone else had to go down this road with an old account?