masonuc

Just curious because I assume AA/US may look to that example of how to act. I'm a US Chairman's flying on AA for a few flights in Jan/Feb and I wonder if they will extend me standard benefits like preferred boarding and seat choice. AA is terrible for non-elites (I can't even choose my seats -- 90% of the plane is blocked) so some sort of change in that policy would be huge, even if the FF programs aren't merged.

Relatedly... for the year they merged (or I guess the year after), did they count your total miles between both airlines to calculate your elite status?

gengar

Some reciprocal benefits went into place as early as 2010 - for example, I believe UDU for one carrier's elites flying the other carrier started in late 2010. I was definitely getting UDU on CO metal as a UA 1K throughout 2011 (I became IAH-based pre-merger). However, there was definitely a good period of time after the merger announcement that there were no or limited reciprocal benefits. (Edited to add: According to wiki, the merger was announced in May 2010, so that's a good half year or more before UDU, for example.)

2011 qualifying miles through both programs were counted cumulatively towards 2012 status, although I recall there were a lot of reports on FT about glitches. I don't believe that FF accounts were actually merged until closer to 3/3/12, or perhaps even after?

I hope for your sake that AA/US only looks at the UACO merger so as to figure out what not to do.

garkster

CO joined *A in Q4 2009 (IIRC), so mileage accrual on UA was available at that time. Sometime in 2010 my UA Premier Exec Gold started showing up on CO's boarding passes as *A, but even before that they were honoring the plastic UA card as *A Gold for priority boarding.

This was all pre-merger, so I'm not sure the US/AA situation is directly comparable.

Dajones2001

Also, in early in 2011, you could apply for matching FF status on both

mherdeg

It took a long time for full parity (matched frequent-flyer status between the carriers). I remember being a UA elite & a CO nobody, being booked in B on a CO flight, and not being able to apply for an instant upgrade; ouch.