American and US Airways have begun phasing in codesharing. In conjunction with this, both US Airways and American Airlines are incentivizing their frequent flyers to credit flights on the other carrier to their home mileage account. No need to book a codeshare flight, just credit a US Airways flight to American — or vice versa — and earn 50% bonus miles.
US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on American Airlines flights between January 13 and March 2.
Registration is required. Flights purchased prior to registering do count and in fact even flights taken during the promotion period prior to registering will count as well (the flip side of this is that bonus miles don’t post right away). The offer applies only to American, American Eagle, and American Connection-operated flights, and not to codeshares operated by other carriers with an American Airlines flight number.
American AAdvantage is also offering a 50% bonus on US Airways flights for the same period of January 13 through March 2.
The promotion rules appear essentially the same as the US Airways offer.
You need to register for the American AAdvantage version of the promotion with code AAUSM.
With this offer a US Airways frequent flyer earns more miles flying American, and an American frequent flyer earns more miles flying US Airways, than flying the airline attached to their home program. Of course choosing to fly the other airline has its disadvantages — while there are some reciprocal elite benefits, upgrades aren’t yet one of them.
Still, this would have been great flying the US Airways Shuttle last week. Bonus miles are bonus miles, and they’re great when you’re going to take a flight anyway.
From the perspective of the airlines, presumably they hope this gooses travel on the other carrier. Although I’d guess that among their frequent flyers the ability to earn status miles and elite bonuses already would suffice. Nonetheless, this could help make the choice a bit more focal.
Eventually miles from US Airways Dividend Miles will be combined into American AAdvnatage accounts. I would be surprised if they don’t offer an opportunity to move miles back and forth on your own long before the two programs are officially combined likely a little over a year from now.
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I’m currently an AA platinum. I’m also a UA 1K. I have a flight this week on US. I already have my UA ff number in my rez. If I want to maximize the miles, and the “experience,” should I switch the ff number to AA?
Is there currently any elite bonus for flying a US flight credited to AA? If not, I probably don’t want to switch. If there is, I would get more miles on AA. If not, I would get more miles crediting to UA.
If I credit to AA, I guess I’d get US’s preferred seating, but that doesn’t seem like a big deal, as there’s no extra legroom and no upgrades yet.
GREAT bonus opportunity since I’m a US Platinum flying AA PHL-BOS-ORD-PEK-ORD-PHL in the next few weeks!
@iahphx – You will get essentially the same benefits (that mean something) on US Airways as a United 1K and as an American Platinum. There’s no elite bonus for crediting the flight to either program. Just a redeemable miles bonus.
You’ll earn more miles crediting to American — American Platinums earn a 100% status bonus plus you get this 50% bonus.
Real question is likely which program you want to accrue in for status qualification.
Thanks, Gary. I found this page which has all the current rules for accruing AA miles on US.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/us-airways.jsp
With this new bonus, it probably pays for me to switch the ff number in my rez to AA. My flight is around 2000 miles, so I’ll earn an extra 1000 more AA miles than I would earn UA miles for the ow trip. Before the bonus, I wasn’t going to bother making the switch.
I agree that status qualification should also factor into the decision but, for me, it doesn’t matter much. I’m a lifetime UA 1K, and my AA status is from a status-match that I’ll be unlikely to be able to actually earn in 2014. Of course, 2000 miles would get me a little closer.
And don’t forget that if you’re carrying AA Gold or US Silver you actually would earn more by using a non-status account from the “other” on your “home” metal because of this promo.
No elite benefits, but you earn more miles.
So I have an AA roundtrip on hold. Do I just put in my Dividend Miles number after registering for the offer on US Air site? I looked at AA’s offer and it wants me to fly on US Air flights to earn the bonus.
When do you think theses miles will come back to me on AA as I don’t really fly US any longer or need their miles which I would otherwise credit to UA?
Gary,
If I have booked LAX-DFW-ICN and the DFW-ICN has a double miles bonus, 1) will I also receive 50 percent bonus on the entire itenerary for utilizing this promotion in addition to the AA DFW-ICN bonus? 2) Is there a danger in signing up for both promotions?
I just realized that you must enter in your dividend miles number so you can’t get BOTH bonuses, correct?
And finally, if you are Executive Platinum or Platinum on AA, you would foreit your double miles bonus would you not — since you would not be crediting your miles to AA.
So a LAX-LHR flight on AA would actually be LESS miles if crediting your Divident Miles account.
I’ll stop now before my head explodes.
@Michael – I do not see this promo as being in conflict with any other, and generally bonus applies to the eligible segment not entire journey
@Wandering Aramean hah, i made that point rather clearly when i wrote the post but seem to have deleted that paragraph so good for pointing that out
Unfortunately, the AA res reps in Norfolk are UNAWARE of the ability to credit AA flight mileage to US Air. The rep started out by saying that these are two airlines and you cannot earn US Air Miles on AA. I told her that effective 1/13/14, and with signups there is a 50% bonus for crediting AA flight miules to USAir Dividend Miles and visa versa, both requiring separate signups. It took her 20 minutes to accomplish this (hopefully) for an AA flight tomorrow, 1/14. She said that their computers are not yet set up to do this, and she had to do it manually. I also had her do the same thing for a Feb AA trip. No status with either carrier, so 50% bonus is worth getting
And, of course, since the res systems are so different and not tied into each other, when the rep changed the FF number to US, all of the passport info got dropped. Had to re-enter it, but at least the res record now shows the US FF number in the passenger info section.
Took a total of 35 minutes for res agent to make changes to 2 AA locaters, changing FF program credited to US Air. No wonder there is a 30 minute hold time – I used the call back feature on AA.
Hi everyone. Sorry, but I have a totally newbie question: How do I get American Airline miles from a US Airways flight? Do I book on the US Airways website and find a way enter my American Airlines frequent flyer number?
@derek- you can enter your American Airlines number on the US Airways site. You can also enter your American Airlines number when booking a US Airways flight on the American website or on third party websites like Expedia.
No codeshares for flights I’m watching yet. Where are others seeing them?
The latest email makes it seem it doesn’t need to be a codeshare. I can just book US Air flights on their site and put in my AA ff number, or vice versa? One needs a promo code?
Sorry if I seem dense but the original email talks about codeshares becoming available.
I am flying to Europe next month. One option is booking a flight through American’s website that code shares with a flight operated by British airways. Will save a lot of travel time. Will I get the US airways miles credit to my divided account?
I have both Dividend & AAdvantage accounts, but no status with either airline. And I have a couple pre-booked itineraries coming up on AA, one RT to MIA this weekend for a cruise and another to MSY for Mardi Gras (at least the outbound leg will fall within the promo dates). So I’ve been looking for a way to change my FF entries in the AA record locators, but it doesn’t seem to be editable online. Is the only way to do this to call AA and struggle with reps who probably don’t even know about the promotion, as @Charles Webb did? I’ll probably do that if I have to, but it’d be wonderful if there’s a secret I’m overlooking whereby I can DIY this online. Thanks!