shawn67

Nope...my RTW trip in C cost 120,000 mi and approx. $85 in taxes per person.

SOBE ER DOC

Out of curiosity, have you ever attempted to book award travel on OW? I have and let me tell you it is much easier than on US. I was able to easily book an OTW in F for 200,000 miles plus fees. I have never been able to do that in the entire time I was a US CP and from what I'm reading here and on the UA board a lot of the *A carriers in Asia are cutting back on award availability.

As badly as you may think the sky is falling I can only say folks over on the AA board think it's even worse.

PHL

The way I read it, the requirement is for a new carrier to fly PHL-LHR for 4 years. Would be interesting to see if Virgin gave it a go, although the city of Philadelphia has tried to get them to fly this route in the past.

SOBE ER DOC

My thought is I can't type for crap and meant VS. Thanks for catching.

SOBE ER DOC

I thought DL got the MIA-LHR slot pair. They flew if for the required time and then shifted it to another city if I remember correctly.

As for PHL, the merged US-AA/BA JV will have three daily flights out of PHL. Seems to me they could drop this to two with proper aircraft rationalization depending on how much of the traffic taking the US flight is connecting to PHL from other cities. Surely, there is enough capacity in the system between all of the other cities on the east coast with LHR service to take up the slack from losing a flight in PHL.

Captain Flush

In all honesty, no I haven't. But I'd never had any difficulty booking *A awards through US either, as I'm willing to do the research and look for the exact availability I want ahead of time, and after picking up the phone I've never met any surprise unavailability that I haven't been able to easily work around. I also haven't noticed the reported reduction in availability among Asian *A carriers and recently got home from an award booking that involved both NH and SQ C. I realize one person's experience doesn't make a trend, but that cuts both ways here. I hope my experience looking for OW awards is like yours after the merger and I'm able to relax my grip on my preference for mixing and matching different carriers as part of the same itinerary.

I never really said the sky is falling because I don't believe it is. At the same time, I know that *A has worked very well for me (particularly living in an international *A gateway, as it appears you may also) and I'm not yet convinced that OW will work nearly as well for me in the longer run.

FWAAA

DL did get the BA/AA slot to begin MIA-LHR, but eventually, DL gave up. US was able to obtain that slot to begin MIA-CLT-LHR (with a change of plane at CLT) since nobody wanted to go head-to-head against BA/AA nonstop to LHR. I'm surprised that new AA might not have to give that one to another potential competitor for MIA service.

I don't see new AA reducing frequencies at PHL to just two (the current BA schedule), as PHL is a huge metro area with plenty of O&D to LHR and beyond. If US is currently connecting people from NYC or BOS or WAS to LHR, then perhaps new AA won't need too many daily flights PHL-LHR, but if US is connecting people from all the smaller spokes over PHL, then new AA may need more than three daily flights to LHR. From NYC, AA/BA fly something like 14 daily flights to LHR, which leads me to think that new AA may need more than two at PHL. From BOS, BA has four daily 772/744 flights to LHR, and both NYC and BOS feature flights from competitors as well.

The reality is that very few other airlines will want to go head-to-head against new AA PHL-LHR unless they can connect passengers at LHR, which pretty much limits the potential competition to VS/DL. The EU can wish for competiton from hubs like PHL, but PHL is basically a fortress hub and most potential competitors are bound to fail, as new AA will dominate service. DL couldn't make a go of it from MIA, and MIA has a LOT of LHR O&D.

UA Fan

Why? How much did it price when you tried?

CPRich

Already ticketed? If so, I doubt you'll have problems.

chiil1974

As an AA PLT for 7 years I can tell you that I have never had a problem redeeming miles. This includes TATL on AA and TPAC on QF and CX in Business. Granted you may not get your first choice in routing (there was a 3.5 hour layover in LAX on the way to AUS), but I have not had many issues.

GAC

Will we be able to earn miles when flying these eleven?

GAC

Reduce? They should reduce PHL - FRA with the loss of *A

eponymous_coward

No fuel surcharges on CX- and, unlike SQ, their award availability in the F cabin isn't a complete joke.

The only really killer out there is BA. Considering half the US *A award thread is Australians buying their miles anyways*, and BA usually has excellent award availability, what's the difference? OK, maybe you're paying a bit more. But at least you're getting some access to F...

*this is a slight exaggeration. Slight.

BoeingBoy

The problem with a non-stop going to DL/VS is a small hub (compared to BA) at LHR and no hub feed at PHL. That makes it hard to compete with the large hub at both ends (with the associated feed into PHL) that AA/BA would have. AA/BA already has the BA flights which would allow AA/BA to capitalize on the PHL-LHR market, leaving DL/VS in the dust. Thus "new" AA would have no real reason to fight to keep that slot.

Jim

FWAAA

On some of them, yes, but generally just redeemable miles (not elite-qualifying miles). When flying on an AA codeshare on any other airline, you'll earn qualifying miles/points just like they're AA flights.

Here's a link to a list of AA current codeshare partners (14 of them):

http://www.aa.com/i18n/aboutUs/codes...tners/main.jsp

Alaska is kinda unique - it's not a Oneworld member, but any AS flight or AA codeshare of an AS flight earns full EQM.