With all the discussions about possible airline mergers, I was wondering if someone could tell me what has happened in the past to ff programs when mergers have occurred? I'm sure there has been a track record on this issue, but I must confess I don't know what that has been.

with the AW->US merger they merged the Amer West miles into USAir's program. I do remember it being problematic. I didn't care much as I had only 10k or so on AW.

God help us all if we move into Skymiles.

Such a general question is probably best asked and answered in MilesBuzz!

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
United Mileage Plus Forum

When AA bought TWA, they combined all my miles and used my old TWA number.

I'm pretty sure it would be the other way around, everything going into WP. Now that I have jinxed us all...

What's more, they provided several months' notice of what was going to happen, how, and when. That gave people who had AmEx Membership Reward points and wanted AA miles (a move that is generally not possible, except via a series of program transfers with substantial loss of value) a chance to move them into TWA's program and have them become AA miles in due course.

When AA bought a smaller Western airline previously (Reno Air?) it was handled similarly. In this case the advance notice gave people time to sign up for Reno's program, which had a sign-up bonus, and have that bonus become AA miles without ever even seeing a Reno (or whatever it was) plane.

when dl got panam, our panam mi accounts were xfered to a new dl # and were given a 5k mi new account bonus.....later, when we merged the accounts, dl took away the 5k...

iirc, my twa mi's were not automatically xfered into a new aa account....but, i ended up w/the twa mi's getting put on my aa account....

i don't remember anything about eastern mi's....perhaps they went to dl? i must have had some....perhaps eal went to dl & others before ff programs started? i used to go to mia frequently and did fly on eal...

we got an email about no activity on whomever the left coast al who merged w/usair recently which was ignored because we don't use usair and the mi's would have been from one trip......

anyway, an aquiring airline will try to get the ffers from the defunct al and i would expect that the mi's would be xfered to th e new program...

good luck...

Claxo,
IIRC my EAL miles transfered to CO's OnePass. Just not sure tho, it's been awhile.
As for PanAm you are correct . The miles transfered to DL with the bonus, then poof!! the bonus was gone.

About a year after LH bought LX, Swiss Travel Club was closed, an equivalent status offered in Miles and More, miles transferred 1:1. IIRC 4 or 6 months notice given so had time to redeem in STC if desired.

I had no problem with my TWA Aviators Miles being rolled into AA's program. My American West miles also transferred smoothly into the US Airways program.

Yes, my America West miles also transferred nicely into USAir.

In fact, when I had to take a business trip on British Air to the UK, I signed up for America West's program prior to the trip so I could credit them to America West (at the time, and I believe still, BA flights across the Atlantic could not be credited to AAdvantage), with the expectation that they would then transfer over to USAir.

This has served me well, and I now have >25K miles in USAir which I can also apply to any Star Alliance flight (Mileage Plus is my principal Freq. Flyer program).