Biggie Fries

Wow. That thread sure is a kick in the teeth. Quite a future .... I guess the business model is fewer airlines means less competition, hence less capacity directed to price-inelastic business travelers. Wish I were one of them!

One thing I find a bit strange in the way UA does their revenue qualifier is that the money goes with the passenger. This makes it more like a minimum cpm on PQMs system. But what about spend spillover? That is, my travel generates a fair amount of ancillary travel from family members (and even others), much of which is on my credit card. I guess in cutting down on my travel, the airlines will be happy to cut down on this ancillary travel, too. See previous paragraph.

PWMTrav

So far, UA and DL are waiving the revenue piece for co-branded credit card holders hitting a certain spend threshold. So in a way, that may address your concern.

jdavis2ca

If I book a trip on USAIR today...for flying in Novemeber 2013, will I be collecting Oneworld miles or Star Alliance miles? Assuming the merger is completed prior to travel?

thanks,

Jamie

geo1005

There has been no final announcement when any change-over from Star to oneworld will take place. Any 'advice' you receive today will be speculation.

My guess: you will still be able to earn miles on your Star Alliance carrier of choice.

AtlanticBeach

The merger won't be complete at that time. You will be able to earn miles according to current airline partner options.

Please notice the sticky thread at the top of the page for more discussion about the merger.

BoeingBoy

Definitely US miles (will be combined with AA miles sometime in 2014/2015) or may be able to choose to credit to US or AA. The ability to choose which program to credit to will be one of the first changes FF's wiill see.

Jim

KennyBSAT

On a somewhat related note, I'd like to get an educated guess on whether *A flights are likely to be able to be booked using US miles in December 2013, for travel Nov 2014. I'm thinking probably not.

Phoenixtinct

Actually, this is incorrect. By all estimates, the merger will be completed in the 3rd quarter, so in the next 3 months. That doesn't mean that anything will change from Day 1 though. Doug Parker has mentioned that US will exit *A 3-6 months after the merger takes place, i. e. most likely at some point in 2014, so any reservations for travel booked/completed by the end of 2013 should be fairly safe. I don't think even the new management announced recently knows specifics just yet. One thing I'm hoping for is they combine elite mileage balances for the sake of earning status right away - that way I can reach Executive Platinum or whatever the new level will be called for next year.

Phoenixtinct

I think this should be OK, however, US will stop offering *A options early in 2014, so if there's an issue with your Nov 2014 flights, you'll be out of luck. You can head to the BMI forum to read about issues many people had with booked tickets after BMI left *A and merged with BA. I personally wouldn't chance it. What they may be able to do though is provide US/AA or OW options if an issue arises. So, book at your own risk.

likestheaction

Interesting little tidbit from the GAO, but what do they know?
http://bloom.bg/16haCMK

fastflyer

PHL I can see. But I cannot see CLT going away. For those of us in the Northeast doing a midcon transfer, it's the only alternative to ORD. I don't want to fly all the way to Miami to get to Columbus, Ohio for example.

FWAAA

I dare say that the GAO's analysis on CLT and PHL is right up there with nonsense like "New AA may decide that PHX offers a better western hub and international gateway than LAX."

As has been discussed repeatedly, there are no guarantees and it's possible that the flight schedules at PHL and CLT are adjusted, but that's a far cry from "new AA might close PHL and CLT hubs."

CLT and DFW are grossly over-served (far too many flights than can be justified by the local traffic - O&D), but that's a hallmark of huge hubs. ATL has been over-served for many years. But it's all DL has in the southeast, and so it remains.

As I've posted before, CLT-South America makes no sense, especially since a fair number of the passengers are connecting to MCO. O&D between CLT and Brazil is practically non-existent. But there's a more compelling case for CLT-Europe, where the O&D is larger. Same with PHL-Europe and perhaps even PHL-Japan. New AA will continue to fly from JFK to Europe, South America and Asia, but that doesn't mean new AA won't fly to some/many of those places from PHL.

FWAAA

Old AA already flies LGA-CMH and so will new AA. There's zero reason to fly to CLT to get from NYC to mid-western state capitals like CMH or IND.

225

Sorry if this was posted somewhere else:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...-gao-says.html

Biggie Fries

In other news, researchers find sky is blue.