CharlotteYork

I will be cashing in a ton of DMs for several tickets on Air New Zealand. If after ticketing and before flying, USAirways "goes away" will our Air New Zealand tickets still be valid?

I suspect this is only a distant possibility but want to know what would happen to our tickets in any event.

CPRich

Hoo boy, is this discussion surfacing again?

This was a topic of many, many threads and many, many opinions about 4-5 years ago during the first couple of bankruptcies.

There were mixed opinions, none based on any facts because nothing like that has really happened. IIRC, one of the airlines stated that they would honor tickets, but there was mostly silence (to be fair, most businesses won't comment on speculation/what if).

I'm sure a search would turn up the previous threads, but the short answer was - no one knows.

My view - airlines don't get compensated/reimbursed until the passenger flies, so the airlines would have no requirement to essentially fly you for free. The only reasons would be goodwill and to sustain the reputation of the *A which. If seats are available this may be enough to have them honor the tickets. Other than buying full-fare backup tickets, there's not much you can do in any case. Does travel insurance cover this? It may be worth looking into if you're worried.

fwiw, I have award tickets to Maui in July and haven't contemplated any problems. (until now - thanks...)

Jumpgate

Last summer I took a fantastic trip to Turkey in C on LH using DM miles.

I e-mailed LH asking them this exact question and they responded saying any confirmed reservation would be honored.

I saved the e-mail.

Dunno if this is a *A rule, but LH seems cool with it.

nissan motor

Boys and girls from the US Airways tool.

How long are the miles with US dividend miles good? Is there any expiration date?

BoeingBoy

No expiration as long as you have activity in your DM account in the previous 18 months. But if there's no account activity, after 18 months all the miles in the account expire.

Jim

iahphx

This is an extremely foolish thread because absent some completely almost unimaginable horrific event, US Airways will be with us in 12 months. You can book with absolute confidence that the airline will exist. They have ample resources to survive -- and possible thrive -- in the next 12 months.

That said, I recall a situation when US's future was WAY less certain. Folks may remember that before the America West purchase/merger, there was a real chance that US might go away. Many flyertalkers (like me!) were redeeming their Dividend Miles to fly other airlines, to avoid losing the miles if things went south. I remember booking tickets to Hawaii on UA at that time. I sent an email to UA customer service asking if my tickets would still be valid if US went under. They SPECIFICALLY said they would honor them.

No guarantee that would be the case these days, or with different airlines, but that's what I was told about 5 years ago.

gleff

IIRC both Varig and Ansett-issued award tickets were honored on Star partners.

Travels2mch

Any thoughts on frequent flyer miles in your account? If US went under, would you still be able to use the miles on another *A carrier? I know when Eastern went away, I was still able to use my OnePass miles on CO, but if I remember correctly, that was a joint FF program between the 2 carriers, not the case with US.

treznor

Almost certainly not. Dividend Miles is a program run by US and thus would be an asset held for bankruptcy proceedings in your example. I don't know the details, but it sounds like Eastern's program was setup more like Air Canada's is today, with the program separate from the two airlines.

iahphx

Generally speaking, you lose your miles if your airline goes out of business. Eastern was an exception because OnePass was the frequent flyer program of both Eastern and Continental. They were both owned by the same company at the time, but only Eastern was involved in the bankruptcy that ended in liquidation.

I'm sure you can search other threads where other airlines HAVE honored the accounts of defunct airlines, but this is rare.

Of course, this is also a largely pointless discussion at this point because there is virtually no risk of US shutting down in the forseeable future (which I'll classify as a year). If you were ranking a million things to worry about in that period, this one would be about 999,000th. Just don't plan on using your Dividend Miles account as a piggy bank for retirement or something. Same principle applies to ANY frequent flyer program.

nissan motor

Fine. So I can buy once every year something from the US website shopping partner and the miles will never expire.

Hmmm... I think I will buy one million miles with the current promo

BoeingBoy

If you haven't already done so, there's a thread about the 250% bonus promo you might want to read through.

As I understand it, you want your big purchase to be 5th through 10th since the first 4 get smaller bonuses. Seems like most people are waiting for the first 4 purchases to post before making the big purchase and time is running out - I think the offer expires the end of this month.

Jim

nissan motor

If I understand that 250 % promo right, there is not much to do if you are not a US residence since you need to order most things and to have them sent to a US address.

ArizonaGuy

There's a post in the thread that seems to confirm all hits, up to 10, will get 250% as long as at least 5 unique merchants were used.