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Merger Update: American Airlines and US Airways

Andrea Rotondo

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July 2, 2020

If you’re a member of the American Airlines AAdvantage program and/or US Airways Dividend Miles, you’ve no doubt been trying to keep up to date on the changes that are in store as the two airlines merge. Here’s what’s happening as of spring 2015.

One Loyalty Program

American Airlines now has one loyalty program: AAdvantage. You can no longer use US Airways Dividend Miles to book award flights using the Dividend Miles award chart. That chart and its policies are now defunct. You must book all award flights using the AAdvantage award chart and the rules associated with it. Here is the award chart for American and US Airways award flights and the chart for oneworld and partner award flights.

Merged Mileage Balances

The IT department at the new American Airlines has been busy on many fronts. In fact, it just completed the process of merging US Airways Dividend Miles accounts with American AAdvantage accounts. If you previously matched the information in your AAdvantage profile to your Dividend Miles account, American merged your miles as of April 1. You will now redeem miles and make any account updates on AA.com.

American Airlines plan for finalizing the merger with US Airways

The airline sent out an emailed titled, “Your loyalty accounts are combined, in which the airline lists important information like your elite status and expiration date, your combined mileage balance, your Million Miler balance, and 2015 year-to-date elite-qualifying miles, points and segments. Review this information to make sure it’s correct.

If you hadn’t matched your account information making sure your name, address, and birth date were the same in both systems your balances were not merged. You can, however, do that now. Log in to either your AAdvantage or Dividend Miles account and click on the link that says, “Merge accounts. Make sure your profiles are the same in both systems before merging accounts. It will then take about a day for your Dividend Miles to show up in your AAdvantage account.

The company is asking that you use your American AAdvantage number for all business at either American or US Airways. However, you can use your username, AAdvantage number, or Dividend Miles number to log in to both AA.com and USAirways.com.

New Elite Upgrade Benefits on Both Airlines

Now that the loyalty systems are one, there is a policy of reciprocal upgrades for elites. For Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum members flying on an American Airlines-operated and marketed flight of 500 miles or less, there are unlimited complimentary upgrades.

The system auto-requests these so you don’t need to do anything special. Executive Platinum upgrades are confirmed 100 hours before departure, while Platinum will get the word 72 hours out, and Golds have to wait 24 hours before departure to potentially clear the upgrade list.

For flights over 500 miles, Gold and Platinum members must use earned or purchased 500-mile upgrade “stickers. Platinums will be confirmed as early as 72 hours before department and Golds are confirmed at 24 hours out. Executive Platinums have unlimited complimentary upgrades that are auto-requested and confirmed 100 hours before departure.

Elite status upgrades on American and US Airways

Single Operating Certificate

The Federal Aviation Administration has conferred the company a single operating certificate (SOC). This document allows the company to begin merging all of its operations. However, this is a time-consuming process and American and US Airways will continue operating as two separate airlines for the time being and for quite awhile in the future.

There’s a lot of back-office administrative work that needs to be done as well as some pretty intensive technology challenges to merge systems and infrastructure. All of that is now in the works.

Two Airlines for Now

For now, operations between the airlines are still separate. From a practical standpoint, that means if you book a seat on a US Airways flight, then you need to check in at the US Airways counter.

Likewise, if American is operating your route, check in with American at the airport. Also, some policies and procedures will differ on American and US Airways.

Late 2015: One Airline

By the end of this year, American will have done the hard work of merging its loyalty program, airlines and all associated operations. At that time well say goodbye to USAirways.com and will conduct all business with American Airlines at AA.com.

All policies and procedures will also sync up so there will be one policy for elite upgrades, same-day standby and confirmed flight changes.

The merger has gone quite smoothly so far. It’s a far cry from the growing pains United experienced while merging with Continental five years ago.

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How to Book American Airlines Awards

Gabi Logan

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July 31, 2020

For three years straight, American Airlines has won two of the top honors among frequent flyer programs: the Freddie Awards for Program of the Year and Best Elite Program.

Nineteen million people voted for the awards, which measure how consumers value loyalty programs. The awards have been the industry standard for more than 25 years.

So what did American do to impress so many picky frequent travelers?

American is part of the oneworld alliance, a coalition of powerful airlines that can get you most places you want to go Air Berlin, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines and TAM Airlines.

The airline also has partnerships with other carriers, including Air Tahiti Nui, Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air, Cape Air, Etihad Airways, Fiji Airways, Gulf Air, Hawaiian Airlines, Jet Airways, Seaborne Airlines, WestJet.

If you’ve heard the buzz about Etihads over-the-top new premium cabin service, you’ll know these partners create some serious value, especially when traveling abroad.

Booking American Airlines Award Tickets

Only awards flights with American Airlines, Air Berlin, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Qantas Airways and Royal Jordanian Airlines can be booked online, so if you’re flying on another partner, you’ll need to call.

Sounds annoying, right? However, what this means is that rather than being restricted to the award inventory you can see on the American site, you can pretty much take your pick of award flights available on its partners.

Build your American award itinerary like this:

1. Search for award tickets on American and see if something is available to your destination for a reasonable number of miles. If you found something, great. Book it. Otherwise, continue.

2. Find out which partner airline flies to your destination. A quick search on Kayak or a similar fare aggregator is the easiest way. Check the list of available airlines against the American Airlines partner list.

3. Go to that airlines website and search for award tickets from your home airport. If the airline doesn’t have any on that route, check where their hubs are using the route map on the airlines website.

4. Find a flight through the American website from your airport to the other airlines hub where you can connect.

5. Return to the partner airlines website and find a flight from that hub to your final destination that works time wise with the flight you found through American.

6. Call the American Airlines award booking line 800-882-8880 and lock in your flights.

Important Things to Know About Booking American Airlines Awards

Technically, all American Airlines awards are booked as one-way flights, so open-jaw itineraries (where you have a round trip that begins in one destination and ends in another) such as as Boston-Paris-New York, or where you can change the airport you return from, such as Seattle-Paris then London-Seattle, are always possible with American and have no restrictions.

If you dont have enough points to book right now, you can hold the ticket for five days free of charge as long as departure is more than 15 days out.

Change is Coming for American Airlines Award Travel

As part of its merger with US Airways, there are some big changes in the pipeline for Americans loyalty program that may affect how much frequent travelers love it.

The oneworld Explorer awards, distance-based awards preferred by people taking long, long-haul flights are gone, as are the stopovers in the North American gateway on an international award that allowed people to book a free one-way ticket elsewhere if they lived in a gateway city. Domestic layovers must now be completed in less than 24 hours, in line with other airlines.

One of the most interesting changes to the new award chart, however, comes at the lowest redemption level. There are more categories where you see the uber low redemptions that used to be known as American’s off-peak awards, like flying to Europe between October 15 and May 15 for 20,000 miles instead of 30,000 miles each way. Its unclear how many seats per flights in this category will actually be available though.

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