Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by eponymous_coward

The problem is that US has sold miles rather profligately- those count as lifetime miles too, no? I dare say there are FTers who've bought or otherwise accrued (sharing, GS promos, TIB) a million miles or more on US who have never flown a mile in a seat. Should they get lifetime Gold or Platinum on AA?

(I imagine our Australian contingent would be rather pleased at lifetime oneworld Sapphire for buying cheap US miles, but QF might not be.)

Originally Posted by LHR/MEL/Europe FF

purchased miles though USDM do NOT count towards any qualifying miles or status. Purchased miles though AA however DID count until they stopped that.

Originally Posted by FWAAA

Parker was obviously talking about the Shares debacle (both at US and last year at UA) where the bigger airlines' systems worked and the acquirer was just stupid (as was Smisek) for replacing the UA system

Originally Posted by eponymous_coward

Exactly- so a system where US lifetime miles from all sources are counted for a one-time boost (as opposed to just US BIS miles) would end up adding some folks.

I believe AA had a limit of 40K miles via purchase per year before they switched to BIS. US... not so much.

Shoot, I probably have something like 300K+ lifetime miles on US from all sources- despite never having been an elite...

Originally Posted by dtremit

In retrospect it was probably still not the best decision, but I believe a major complication with the HP/US res merger was that US had outsourced its entire IT operation to SABRE in the late '90s as a cost savings measure. So there was essentially no "in-house" expertise on the US side.

Originally Posted by kudzu

Agree that it was a cost-saving measure during a difficult time when money was tight. HP also owned the QIK overlay to SHARES, so in-house expertise with QIK/SHARES may have been another factor when they decided to go with SHARES.

Originally Posted by rrgg

I'm not sure why people think AA would want to let those non-BIS miles from US count. I thought a few years ago AA sources said they wanted to close that "loophole" and you're talking about re-opening it for a moment. I think I'd be happy if the LT program is allowed to exist as it stands today.

Originally Posted by dcAA

What will probably happen though is an adjustment for EQM. My understanding is that the current US MM program is BIS only, while AA gives MM credit for all EQM earning flights.

Originally Posted by grahampros

Not correct. AA is now BIS now and has been for a couple of years ago. that loop hole was closed.

Originally Posted by AmericanAirlines

Starting December 1, 2011, AAdvantage base miles earned by flying on American Airlines, American Eagle® or the AmericanConnection® carrier or any AAdvantage program participating airline will count towards Million Miler status.

Originally Posted by jfinsocal

The inequity is that is was easy to churn AA Citicards and the bonus miles counted toward LT status. The solution is to create a couple layers above LT plat (50 k tier) - bury them per se.