Originally Posted by jwhite4
This is probably a question better left for lawyers, but aren't there any rules in regards to the Alliance? If LH doesn't want to redeem awards from US or UA members, I'm sure then could try to convince the other members to evict them (2/3 majority might be enough). Or they could just leave the Alliance themselves. It seems like though either you 'are in or out', and until either of these actions happen, there should be no selective rules between member airlines. That really defeats a lot of the (so-called) advantages of being in an alliance.
Jeff
--------------------------------------
Like most organizations with less than adequate forsight, *A obviously had not thought through all of the impacts of what bankruptices on both of its member airlines in the USA would have. That is why, IMHO, you are seeing what looks like a "make it up as we go" policy on booking award travel now.
What likely is happening is that the level of award redemption requests have skyrocketed from US and UA ff members. The requests are probably going to what are perceived as the premium *A partners first.
When some of the US and UA ff memebers can't book travel with their first choice of *A partners, they will call other partners to try and cobble together an itinerary.
On the other side of the fence, the flood of redemption requests have been trickling up though the individual airlines management structures--and then the *A partners began talking to each other and found out that they all are being innudated with award redemption requests that were never considered reasonable or typical in the normal operation of the alliance.
That's where we are now-the partners in the alliance are fumbling around about what to do. I doubt UA or US have much input into the discussions except to be informed about what the rest of the members of the alliance are planning to do to return to an equilibrium situation.
US putting out press releases that liquidation is looming is making the situation worse. It is resulting in US ff members accelerating their award requests to alliance partners and probably forcing the alliance partners to take immediate drastic steps to get the situation under control as it is acceptable to them...