SS255

AA used to count all earned miles (including credit card miles) toward million miler status. I believe it was in December, 2011, that they stopped counting all earned miles, and now only count flown miles. (I'm not sure if it's only BIS miles on AA metal, or if EQM's/partner metal also counts.)

When the programs combine, the legacy AA folks will have a huge leg up on the DM folks if we do not get a one-time mileage adjustment the way UA adjusted the Mileage Plus members last year. In other words, I hope they re-calculate our lifetime miles so that all earned miles up to the point of the AA cutover to flown miles only.

grahampros

I was aware of the AA issue but not how UA "adjusted" Highly doubt AA would adjust simply because the loop hole lasted as long as it did since the system was not capturing the difference in miles. They really have no way to tack it back. And it's not really a competition anyway. Either you have lifetime on your current carrier or you dont upon cut over and however it's measured going forward, everyone get's to accrue the same. What you have up to this point isn't really that meaningful in determining your lifetime in the new program. You will carry over what you have.

rrgg

I'm sorry I really think you'll be disappointed. AA changed their policy way before a merger was announced anyway. Also, I don't think the UA adjustment was equivalent to what you're hoping for.

oldsmoboi

Why is there the assumption that the new airline would drop all of the US Airways routes? I expect that USdbaAA will still be landing in Frankfurt and a couple times a day, so those who don't want to connect in LHR should have no fear there. Shuttle service on the east coast will remain too....

treznor

I wouldn't count on US continuing to Frankfurt. For the near term, until US leaves Star they'll continue, but after US leaves Star (which may or not be before the merger is complete), there's little reason for them to fly to Frankfurt since they can't really drive traffic to LH any longer. At that point Frankfurt has to support destination traffic like Rome does, which I'm not sure it can.

FWAAA

I don't believe that AA will "drop all" of the US routes, but I suspect that some rationalization may occur. My assumption is that the FRA business traffic (plus MUC) that originates in Germany won't be abandoning their LH status and their *A network just so they can fly AA to/from CLT. If a large portion of the CLT-Germany traffic is German-originating, then perhaps LH will fly to CLT from MUC (and perhaps also from FRA).

If there are sufficient numbers of CLT-originating traffic to Germany, then sure, AA will fly to as many of them as are profitable. Combined with Air Berlin, there are plenty of connecting opportunities at DUS and MUC.

East coast shuttle service will remain, but its importance declines each year. Daily traffic numbers are abysmal and it appears that the shuttles depend more and more on connecting traffic, at lower and lower fares.

kudzu

I agree. CLT-FRA daily nonstop was started by old US back in 2000 (well before it joined *A in 2004). LH introduced CLT-MUC in 2004 with the coming of *A. Last year, business was good enough CLT-FRA for US to annoounce a second (seasonal) daily flight this season ... also trying out PHL-FRA seasonal this year.

Apparently, US has made money all these years flying CLT-FRA, pre-*A and even after LH's CLT-MUC daily nonstop. Parker is all about profits and the route will stay as long as it's profitable.

What will likely disappear is the present codeshare arrangement with LH for the CLT- FRA/MUC flights (others too) upon US' exit from *A.

aztimm

Ha! Of course the *A codeshares will go away

I wouldn't at all be surprised if US begins PHL/CLT-TXL service (codesharing with AB), or perhaps waits until the new BER opens (sounds like that may be a while, Berlin Brandenburg Airport info).
I'd imagine service to MAD (codesharing with IB) could increase, and service to HEL (codesharing with AY/Finnair) could commence.

oldsmoboi

They still fly to PHL-FRA too though and every flight I've been on has been full. There is a not insignificant PIT-PHL/CLT-FRA component as well with both Siemens and Bayer having large operations at both ends of those runs.

The traffic doesn't need to originate at CLT or PHL for a CLT/PHL-FRA flight to be profitable.... that's the whole point of hub-and-spoke.

The biggest threat to north east shuttle service comes not from the air, but from Amtrak getting it's Acela replacement online.

rrgg

I've been wondering if we might even see a VIE flight because of AB..

oldsmoboi

When US can no longer codeshare with LH, I might wonder if they'd even add a CLT - MUC run. There is a bunch of business running GSP-CLT-MUC right now, I can't see them wanting to give that up. It's either that or start cutting some of the 17 GSP-CLT flights over to GSP-PHL and letting the BMW people get across the Atlantic from Philly instead.

oldsmoboi

My question is on how they are going to merge miles and status. How did that work for CO/UA?

aafreq

A recent poster on the AA blog calculated the amount of years that current AA FF members, starting new, needed BIS to attain LT status.....I think it was 10 years for GLD...
The main concern of most FF regarding this merger is the possiblity of adding an additional tier to the program thus 'devaluing' all tiers above to lower status.

aafreq

A recent poster on the AA blog calculated the amount of years that current AA FF members, starting new, needed BIS to attain LT status.....I think it was 10 years for GLD...
The main concern of most FF regarding this merger is the possiblity of adding an additional tier to the program thus 'devaluing' all tiers above to lower status.

SS255

United gave all Mileage Plus members a one-time adjustment to include all non-BIS EQM's earned up until December 31, 2011. The members of both programs started 2012 on a level playing field until the programs merged, and starting 1/1/12, only BIS miles count toward Million Miler status.

The downside to this for many PMUA Mileage Plus members who were close to 2MM prior to 2012 is that UA revoked the lifetime United Club membership which they used to give at 2MM. A lot of these people had this particular goal in mind, so they were flying UA metal when they could have been flying *A partner metal.

In addition to this, the 1MM'ers lost their 2 annual RPU's, but in return are now able to gift their exact annual status to a spouse or SO living at the same address. Of course, if you are single or your spouse is also a MM'er/has earned status independently of you, the loss of the RPU's is huge.

Since US's MM program is very weak, my guess is that the AAdvantage million miler program will not change, unless a 75K tier is added to the AAdvantage elite program. The big question is how Dividend Miles will get counted toward our lifetime mileage counter. I personally know someone who earned 1MM status primarily through credit card spend, and it seems rather unfair that she gets the same advantages as a DM member who flew 1MM BIS (and possibly also has an additional several hundred thousand in spend on their US credit card). You're talking about almost 30 years' worth of lifetime miles getting counted differently for long-time DM members.