kudzu

Valid point raised...

The few times I've had to cancel *A awards using DM Miles, I got them redeposited before the phone call was over. No fuss, no waiting for $$ refund to US from other carriers, etc (and BTW I'm not sure whether US pays up front for the award booking on partner carriers or whether it's payment after flights flown). If US paid $$ up front to partner carriers, I figure they got it back later.

Assuming a 1:1 conversion ratio of US Miles to new AA Miles, any cancellation of *A award after US exits from *A should result in new AA redepositing an equal # of Miles used, i.e. if 100k DM Miles were used for the *A award and then cancelled, 100k new AA miles would be redeposited in the new AA account. US IT may not be much, but new AA's IT should be able to link and track old US/new AA account numbers for a while (our IT experts here can chime in to say whether I'm dreamin' )

BoeingBoy

To the best of my knowledge award ticket payment is handled through the clearing house like paid tickets. US issues the award after availability is confirmed but pays the *A partner (net of owed them and US owed by them) at the next clearing house cycle. Same with cancellation/refund - US notifies *A partner that award is cancelled and payment (net) is settled at next clearing house cycle.

The problem could be that the negotiated *A rate is different from an interline "new" AA/Turkish rate with the first being negotiated and the 2nd a regular fare. Since miles don't actually change hands between *A carriers on award tickets, the "new" AA miles would possibly be different than what was used from a US account.

Jim

PhillyFive

I have a major trip on UA planned in mid-Sept (booked 350+ days out actually) and had expected to earn DM to make higher status on US since I am PHL-based and thus a captive US traveller most times.

With the AA merger on the horizon, any thoughts on if I'll still be able to do that, or will US be out of *A by then?

(If a thread with opinions on this exists, apologies...I couldn't find it..)

CPRich

Hard to tell. Iirc, using the UA/CO merger as a template, the FF program changes would have started just about now. While every merger is different, I'd say September may be after changes are made. But there's really no way to tell. And is there anything you'd do differently if it is? Is there a US or AA flight you've chosen not to take?

peetahvw

Here's a new wrinkle - the EU might require US/AA to give up a slot at LHR post-merger, for fear of the monopoly of the PHL-LHR route. Great news for PHL flyers, I'm guessing the most likely would be Delta (although they have the seasonal to CDG) but I'm hoping for Virgin (or as the article states they might even allow a fifth-freedom carrier so fingers and toes crossed for an Asian or Middle Eastern carrier (yes I know Qatar starts next year direct to Doha) - anything to improve the premium products out of Philly to Europe.

Article:
http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...ir_route_.html

FWAAA

That the EU would look at PHL-LHR isn't too surprising. I expected the EU to look at the CLT-LHR slot pair that US obtained a while back which came from AA/BA as a concession to the EU when BA and AA were granted permission to implement their immunized joint business agreement.

Originally, that slot was intended for MIA-LHR, and DL tried that for a while before giving up. US applied for the slot and obtained permission to route it MIA-CLT-LHR (with a change of plane at CLT), essentially stripping MIA of the additional competition.

Of course, CLT has very little London O&D compared to PHL, so if the regulators ignore CLT, very few customers will be harmed by (presumably) higher monopoly fares. Still, the merger results in a reunification of that slot pair with AA/BA, airlines that were supposed to provide it to competitors from MIA.

dtremit

I don't know if it has any relevance to this, but US Airways will continue to exist for quite some time as a subsidiary of AA -- even long after it ceases to operate any planes. When they announced the management team, they announced that Bob Isom will act as its CEO.

flight62

From State of the Airline today.

Code share starts within 10 days of Day 1. That's all I have right now. How Star is effected was not discussed.

kudzu

Thanks for the heads-up, flight62 ^

Wow. Sooner than I expected ...

Anxiously awaiting *A details. Looks like those of us with *A flights booked for travel after Nov 1 (and needing the miles to requalify) would be sweating right now

Captain Flush

Has US given official notice to *A of its intention to exit? It was my understanding that six months' advance notice was required. If US intends to join OW as of 11/1 (and presumably leave *A), that could tie neatly with the reports of difficulties making award bookings with some *A carriers from 11/1 onward, but I can't imagine that "official" word of US giving notice wouldn't have gotten out by now if US had given it back in May.

ellinj

Code shares with AA isn't the same thing as joining OneWorld.

Captain Flush

Of course. But the OP said that codeshares will start within 10 days of Day 1. Day 1 of what? The thread title certainly suggests something involving OneWorld.

Fanjet

But the UA/CO merger is not a good template to use regarding alliances. Before that merger was announced, UA and CO were in the planning stages of creating a "seamless" alliance with each other (which is why we were expecting a merger between the two and not a UA/US one). And part of that involved CO leaving ST for Star. So that was in the works beforehand.

BoeingBoy

It's a three level process...

US will exist, at least on paper, until a single operating certificate is in place but that's just FAA housekeeping - until all the training/policies are done and the same, the FAA won't let US crews, maint, etc operate AA planes and vice versa. For the US/HP merger that was a year - I didn't pay close enough attention to either the DL/NW or UA/CO mergers to know how long those took to get a single ops cert but between making manuals/policies/procedures identical and training it would be hard to do it in less than a year. This is really separate from *A/OW, just as UA/US are separate carriers in the same alliance.

As a practical matter US will exist, as far as the clearing house is concerned, until at least all open transactions are settled. Nothing says that "new" AA couldn't pay/cash the clearing house transactions. Again, this is separate from *A/OW - "new" AA/US could just code share with each other, missing only the OW/*A connections that would allow US to be a OW partner.

Practically speaking, I doubt that US would move from *A to OW in less than 6 months. I seriously doubt that US IT could make the res/FFer transition that quick. Before that I expect that there'll be a blanket code share which allows US FFers to earn miles on "new" AA and vice versa.

SOBE ER DOC

Day 1 of merger.