Status of HP and US forums
 

With the merger of America West and U.S. Airways now official, what will be the status of their respective forums here in FlyerTalk? They are still operating on separate certificates for the time being, but when they begin operating on a single certificate, will there be any changes to these forums here (ie merging, deletion of one, etc...)? Perhaps changes will me made in the near future, of course pending the decisions of the FlyerTalk elite.

Having touched (briefly) upon this with Randy, my best guess would be expect to see the seperate forums continued until they finally roll up mileage totals in both programs and resolve the last of the partner issues with both programs.

Merging two FT boards is not always straightforward. I experienced the merger of Intercontinental Ambassador and Priority Club as well as the one of Air France Frequence Plus and KLM Flying Dutchman. The first one has been a smooth process, the second one is more ... challenging, due to the wider gap between the approaches of the two merged communities. I suppose in the case of 2 US based FFPs, it will probably not be too difficult.

This is a bit of a challenge. I think ClueByFour offers the best roadmap forward. At the moment there are announcements about how the combined program will work -- which means you get some fractured discussion taking place in two diferent forums. But at the same time, the programs are still separate with different rules, offers, benefits... so it doesn't clearly make sense to combine them yet. Eventually they'll certainly become one.

That is indeed the decision Randy announced yesterday at the moderator meeting. The boards will remain seperate till the merger has turned both airlines into one.