How the American Airlines & US Airways Merger Will Benefit You

The deed is done.  American Airlines and US Airways’ merger has been approved by the government, and now it is only a matter of time that US Airways disappears from the map. This is set to create the world’s largest airliner now that their forces will be combined.

American and US Airways will become one

We’re now left with Delta, United, and American as far as the legacy airline carriers in the US.  This 10 year window of consolidation in the airline industry has removed a significant amount of competition, which generally means bad thing for the consumer.

There are tons of views on how the glass is half-empty about the American Airlines and US Airways will hurt you.  There is plenty of evidence of why this is the case, but for this post I’ll give the half-full viewpoint of how this merger will help you.

• Consolidate accounts–  It will be great for me when my 62,000 US Airways Dividend Miles merge into my AAdvantage account and put my total to over 200,000 AAdvantage miles. My wife’s points will do the same, which will be great when we look at booking our next vacation.  Putting all the points into one currency gives me more chances.
• Access to more hubs–  Living in Idaho is difficult for travel.  We are very limited on our options, and for that reason, most of the time we end up driving to Salt Lake.  Although this merger doesn’t change the flights that come in and out of Idaho Falls, it will give me additional flights out of Salt Lake.  My hopes are that this will create more opportunities for additional American flights, which give me better chances of using my miles.
• You still have time to score the The US Airways Premier World MasterCard®– Barclaycard has come out and said that I can continue to earn US Airways miles:

This is a great way to pick up some (soon to be) American Airlines miles.  The US Airways Premier World MasterCard® usually pulls credit from TransUnion, which is the least commonly used agency.  The bonus isn’t massive, but the spending requirement is ridiculously low, so it is best paired with a couple of other cards.  🙂  Get this card before the offer is gone.  It is another way to bulk up your AAdvantage account.  It is estimated that you will be able to transfer your Dividend Miles into your AAdvantage account early in 2014.

Citi has announced that it will continue to offer the American Airlines co-branded credit card moving forward, so make sure you take advantage of this card before it disappears.

• People with Status-It will be great for fliers who have status with either carrier.  Their status will be honored by both carriers at an unspecified date, which will be nice especially while they continue to operate as two separate companies for a while.

Overall I don’t really think that this is an advantage to most fliers.  It allows for less competition in the market, which inevitably results in higher prices paid.  Either way, it is here to stay, so let’s just take advantage of everything we can to make it as good as possible for us!