US Airways Extending 2013 Elite Status Through March 2014

Blog reader Mark S. who is a US Airways Platinum member as an American Express Centurion (“Black Card”) cardholder passes along the following email that he received:

I guess they do not want to send out new membership cards with the Star Alliance logo on it, only to turn around and incur the expense of cards with a oneworld logo.

However, since they’re not sending out new membership cards until early April that likely means a gap (of several days or a little over a week) where US Airways elites flying internationally may not be able to access partner airline lounges as lounges generally require showing the elite status membership card for access.

The US Airways relationship with American Express ends March 22. American Express Platinum and Centurion cards will no longer receive American and US Airways lounge access after that date, and the US Airways Platinum status benefit for Centurion cardholders will also go away.

It’s been expected that American Express Centurion members would be able to re-up their Platinum status for 2014 prior to March 22nd, however, and have that status through February 2015. And that may still be the case, it isn’t clear to me that US Airways status has to first expire before getting re-upped by American Express. But this throws a small potential monkey wrench in that process, if along with the change US Airways stops renewing status since current status will last beyond the expiration of the American Express relationship.

Any Centurion cardholders trying to obtain or renew Platinum status with US Airways please do share your experiences.


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I hope you had a good chuckle that a Centurion Cardmember is a reader of your blog.

    Will Mark do a guest blog post about rewards programs when flying private? (I kid!)

  2. I wonder if AA will extend their elites by a month as well? doubtful and I will be out of SWUs by then anyway.

  3. Shouldn’t need the card, Star Alliance updated it’s rules. If an agent refuses, have them check their Star Alliance manual, page 140:

    “Customer must present proof of SAG-level status via a valid frequent flyer programme SAG-level card
    or other valid indication of SAG-level status, such as XX*G on the boarding pass, where XX is the carrier
    code of the carrier with whom the customer has SAG-level status”

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