In early
December, American Airlines and US Airways announced that they were going to
merge, having finally gotten the approval of the Department of Justice. Here
are the basics you need to know:
- US Airways is going away and all their planes, flight crews,
and branding will become American Airlines.
- The new American will have all the old American hubs plus
all the US Airways hubs.
- The combined airline will be in the Oneworld alliance.
Why I’m ecstatic about the merger
- The merged airline will be in Oneworld
American
Airlines is currently in Oneworld, while US Airways is in the Star Alliance.
The airlines won’t be completely combined for a year at least I would guess,
but in the meantime US Airways will be leaving Star Alliance and joining
Oneworld. This will happen on March 31.
Why does
this matter to me, and perhaps to you as well? Because my favorite airline in
the world is in Oneworld, British
Airways. I spend 9,000 British Airways miles (Avios) to fly American between DC
and Chicago. When US Airways joins Oneworld, I’ll be able to spend 9,000 miles
to fly so many more places. This is because US Airways has a hub at my home
airport, Washington-Reagan. I will be able to use 4,500 Avios to fly one-way
anywhere from DCA that is 650 miles or less. Here’s a visual.
For those
that live at a US Airways hub, the same will be true for you. Their hubs are Charlotte,
Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Washington DC. Start
earning those Avios!
- One airline will fly between all of my top destinations
I fly to
Saint Louis for work and Chicago and Boston for girlfriend and family.
Currently, AA serves Saint Louis and Chicago from DC, while US Airways serves
Boston. Now I will be able to fly one airline between all of them, meaning I
can earn both elite status and miles faster.
- US Airways Dividend Miles are going away
US Airways
consistently has had some of the worst award availability of any carrier, plus
they charge some ridiculous fees to use your miles. Now technically US Airways
is taking over American and just using American’s name, but since they’re using
American’s AAdvantage program I’m assuming (or maybe hoping) that they will
keep American’s more liberal award availability policy.
- Dividend Miles will become AAdvantage miles
This is kind
of a corollary of the last one, but all my Dividend Miles and AAdvantage miles
will be combined at some point. The US Airways Barclaycard has been kind to me,
and I’ve earned about 150,000 US Airways miles by signing up for a few of them.
Now all of those miles will be actually useful!
Why I’m nervous
The merger
won’t be all great news for customers, especially leisure travelers who are
more price-sensitive.
- One less airline means less competition
Last year there
were five major airlines that had a nationwide presence: American, US Airways,
United, Delta, and Southwest. This year there will be four. Theoretically the
new American should be the same size as American and US Airways individually,
but I would guess they will start trimming flights on routes where they offer
too many as a combined airline. Plus, the deal they made with the Department of
Justice stipulated they have to give up some flights at Reagan, O’Hare, La
Guardia, Logan, Dallas-Love, LAX and Miami, so they’ll legally have to fly fewer
flights. Four airlines instead of five means that fares will remain higher
because there will be fewer seats available for purchase and fewer airlines to
begin fare wars. This will hit leisure travelers especially hard in my opinion.
- One less airline means one less award program
By the same
token that fewer seats will mean higher fares, fewer seats will also mean less
award availability. Flights will be fuller, and airlines don’t tend to sell
cheap award tickets when flights are full. Whenever I’m looking for flights, I
like looking at all of the major airlines’ award programs to see who has the
best deal for the route I’m looking at. Granted, US Airways never won this
competition. Seriously, not once in my two years of possessing US Airways miles.
But it will still make finding award seats tougher when there is one less
airline making them available.
- Loss of the Barclaycard
US Airways’
credit card, as I mentioned, is a treasure trove of free points. You sign up,
make one purchase, and earn 35,000 miles. No annual fee the first year. And I’ve
gotten three different cards in the past year. Sad to see it go as the new
American will stick with American’s current suite of Citi credit cards. Sign
up for the Barclaycard while you still can.
- Loss of lounge access with Amex Platinum
A month ago,
Amex announced that the combined US Airways and American Airlines were not
going to renew their contract with Amex Platinum. Currently, Platinum
cardholders get unlimited access to both airlines’ airport lounges, a benefit I
use almost every single time I fly. Now I will have to either buy membership in
the new American’s Admirals Club for $500 a year, or get the Citi Executive
card, which is also $500 a year, in order to retain my access.
Today’s news
The combined
airline had mentioned that there would be a merger-related announcement on
January 7, and this morning I received an email with some good news. Starting
today, the following will take place:
- You can now earn and redeem US Airways miles on American
Airlines and vice-versa
This makes
one-way award tickets on US Airways now possible by using AAdvantage miles.
- Elites will receive reciprocal benefits on both airlines
Now when I
fly home I can get priority boarding and free checked bags using my AAdvantage
Gold.
- Reciprocal lounge access
Members of
either club can now visit both.
- Codesharing (in two weeks)
This means
you’ll be able to piece together fares and award tickets using flights on both
airlines. For instance, if you buy a ticket from Phoenix to Boston via Dallas,
you could fly US Airways to Dallas and American to Boston but have your bags
transferred like you were flying one airline.
If you have
questions about the merger and what it means for you, feel free to reach out via
Twitter @wennecorp or by posting a comment here.
No comments:
Post a Comment