Does US Airways Status Match?
 

I've read about purchasing the trial, but I'm wondering about Status Matching. My daughter just obtained Gold status on United by flying on both on United our of IAD and US Airways out of DCA and BWI.

She goes to Charlotte, frequently, and will be moving to Charlotte during 2014, so she will be moving most if not all of her travel to US in January and I was hoping she could get status matched on US and start earning US miles in January. Since next year, she will need to move her travel to US/AA, wanted her to benefit from US status after 1/1/14.

Does US offer a status match?

No they do not. And even if they did, they likely wouldn't status match to another *A airline. This is fairly standard among airlines that do offer status matching. The best option will be to purchase the trial.

Yes they do. Check with your corporate travel group, and they'll take care of everything for you. For my company, it is a simple form, and yes they do match even within an alliance.

Perhaps it is because my corporate travel group is worthless IMO, but they offered no help, and US was unwilling to match my DL Gold status when I moved to CLT last year.

With that, I found just the silver trial to be well worth the money, given that they honor the status during the trial. (Early boarding, occasional upgrades).

OP didn't mention Corporate Travel Group being an option.

It has to be a pretty large corporation and probably one that has negotiated fares to be able to get a status match. Even then the OP was talking about his daughter getting the status match - makes it even harder to get unless it's her employer that can arrange it.

Jim

Thanks for the feedback, the only reason, my daughter would be looking to status match is because of the merger. Without the merger she would be fine with United Gold Status, which would also allow her to earn miles on US, where most of her travel has been and will be. In hindsight, I wish she had been earning miles in US and not United, but that's water under the bridge.

My daughter is not sure about whether her corporate travel folks can help her or not, guess we'll just send a nice email and see what happens.

US won't direct status match a *A partner right now (other than for large corporate customers and that's handled by the corporate customer, not US). Corporate deals will sometimes even include a bump, e.g. a Tier 3 (Gold) on UA to Tier 2 (Plat) on US.

But, it is entirely possible that after US leaves *A and joins OW, that the new DM/AA program will do something to attract certain specific UA fliers. No way of predicting now.

You can always have her do a trial preferred. If she can get at least 15k in 90 days, she'll have gold all year.

As a plat, you should be able to nominate her for that, if you haven't already nominated someone else, or nominate her to full silver if you've hit your 85k special dividend.

If not, you can always buy it, or look in CC for those who one one to trade ... ;)

I'd be surprised if they're doing much right now, with the merger, integration of the programs, etc.

I'm actually surprised they aren't starting to offer UA fliers status matches.

As a 1K segment flier with the merger and US leaving *A I will have to move over and fly US in 2014 starting in January. I fly about 40% of my UA flights through US on *A and can't do 100% on UA but can do at least 90% on US if I decide to make the move (which is all but decided).

It sure would be nice if I don't have to start 2014 without status.... and really don't feel like buying up a challenge.

Not poaching other member airlines is sort of a *A thing. Starting about Jan 7 it appears that you'll be able to earn US miles and get some status benefits on AA flights if that helps at all.

Jim

I know that it is but being they're jumping ship as they are and will be in direct competition in a few months I'm surprised they aren't bending that poaching courtesy sooner.

I understand that AA doesn't generally match status either so it's entirely possible that the new AA will still offer trials only so why change for a few months.

Jim

Several here have US will match status through corporate programs.