US Airways Miles to Be Merged into American AAdvantage Next Month!

by Gary Leff

I haven’t received my US Airways Dividend Miles e-statement for March yet, but Loyalty Lobby received his and notes the following paragraph:

Next month, we’ll reach the next milestone on our path to integration by bringing Dividend Miles into the American Airlines AAdvantage® program. We’ll transfer your mileage balance and elite-qualifying activity into your new (or existing) AAdvantage account.

When the 2015 program and details of how the US Airways and American programs would be combined were released in October, we were told the combination would happen during the second quarter of 2015. At the time I wrote,

They haven’t set a target date, and there’s lots of IT work to do, but they sounded optimistic to me about hitting their deadlines on the early, rather than late, side of the calendar.

Throughout I’ve been predicting early in the second quarter rather than later. Unless they were certain of being able to hit the second quarter (meaning they thought they’d be ready even before that) they wouldn’t have publicly made the second quarter commitment.

Nonetheless, this appears to be the first official confirmation that the combination should happen in April rather than June.

This is progress, and will mean your account balances can be used towards the same award tickets. For elite members it will make upgrading a whole lot easier with status on one airline while flying the other. So it’s a good thing.

However, it means that you should right away:

  1. Link your American and US Airways accounts to help ensure a smooth transition for your miles.
  2. Book any awards you want using the US Airways chart (which allows a stopover and more flexible routings than AAdvantage, but requires roundtrip flying)
  3. Get the US Airways credit card, that will go away for new applications once the programs merge.

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. Gary – I’m assuming that once combined, you will still be able to book one-way award tickets as is the current case with AA??

  2. Well crap. Was hoping to book one last round-trip HKG award flight under the better US Air chart but we don’t hit 330 days until mid-April. Guess I’ll have to hope that by “next month” they mean “end of next month” 🙁

  4. Flight attendant told me a few weeks ago the date was April 19th. Don’t have anything to back that up with but it was what I was told.

  5. Thanks for the post. I got this message last night too.

    Hey I’m wondering if any rules on the companion pass will change when the programs merge?

  6. I wonder what effect this will have on the sign-up bonuses & spending requirements for the Citi AA cards.

  7. Any word on what the expiration policy will be when combined? My AA points expire in July but USAir ones not until well into 2016

  9. anyone else having problems combining accts online? I’ve tried from both directions (AA and USA), and they say I need to call. Haven’t had time to do that yet (since I’m guessing it’s not a 5 min. call).

  10. mbh-

    You have to make sure that both accounts have the same email address, DOB, and sex.

    Gary-

    I got the US airways card in summer 2014. Do they give out multiple versions of the same card?

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