On Tuesday, American Airlines announced that it would combine the legacy loyalty programs of American Airlines and US Airways on this coming Saturday, March 28. Previously, American had stated that these two programs would be merging sometime in the second quarter 0f 2015, so this puts them a little ahead of schedule. The newly combined program won’t be a huge change to those loyal to American Airlines, but it looks to be quite an adjustment for those US Airway Preferred members — and many of those adjustments are good!
So now that these programs are merging into one, what does that mean to the frequent flyer?
In general, passengers should know the following tidbits while this merger goes through this week:
- Both websites will be functional this week as the programs combine
- Some US Airways Dividend Miles functionalities will be unavailable until Saturday, March 28
- The last day to book US Airways awards and to take advantage of its unique award chart is Wednesday, March 25.
- So March 25 is the last day one can book their de-facto Round the World trip in First Class for 120,000 miles. It’s the last day to book Australia in business class for 110,000 miles. It’ll be a sad day indeed
- If you’ve already linked your US Airways Dividend Miles and American AAdvantage accounts, they balances will be combined
- If you haven’t linked your accounts, the airline will combine your accounts and issue a new American AAdvantage number to you that will show your combined airline activity
