Originally Posted by sdsearch

One suggestion is to simply wait. US miles can't be used on one-way flights (or, more precisly, it costs just as many US miles to book a one-way flight as a round-trip flight). Once, perhaps a year from now, maybe sooner, US miles can be transferred to AA, they'll be the same thing as AA miles which you're familiar with using (and you will be able to use AA miles on one-way trips, say one direction paid out of person A's account and the other direction paid out of person B's account).

When DL and NW merged, before the accounts became combined, they had a way to transfer betwen DL and NW accounts. When UA and CO merged, before the accounts became combined, they had a way to transfer between UA and CO accounts. Even though Southwest and AirTran are not fully merged and their accounts are not yet combined, they have a way to transfer between Southwest and AirTran accounts.

So there's every reason to expect that at some point well before the actual merger of accounts that US and AA will develop a way to link the two accounts and transfer between them. Unfortunately, since it's not yet been announced, no one yet knows when that will happen.