January 7, 2014 marks a big day for the #newAmerican Airlines. Not only is it the first day of A321T operations (of which yours truly will be flying today in First Class, follow on twitter for live-tweeting) but it’s the first step towards integrated operations between American Airlines and US Airways.
In my opinion, details about January 7th have been pretty vague, so I was somewhat excited when I saw the first signs when I walked into LAX late on January 6th to catch a red-eye. US Airways Elites are now on the list of Priority-eligible passengers. I imagine there’s a similar sign in the US Airways terminals with AAdvantage members added to their signs.
I’ve played around with a US Airways booking I have for the future and as an American Airlines Executive Platinum, I was able to select preferred seats and exit row seats. No reciprocal upgrades just yet.
An Admirals Club employee showed me a memo stating that American and US Airways passengers will be able to earn miles on each other’s airlines starting today. In addition, on the mileage-redeeming side, US Airways has shown up on the American Airlines website as a Saver redemption option. You should be able to redeem for American Airlines flights with US Airways miles as well.
Lastly, if you have US Airways club membership or Admirals Club membership (including through the Citi Executive Mastercard), you now get reciprocal club access to the other airline’s club.
Even the employee’s memo had very little information, other than links to American’s and US Airways’ merger information web pages.
Keep in mind that US Airways is still not a oneworld member, and won’t be until March 31, 2014 (they leave Star Alliance on March 30th). That means that while they are an American Airlines partner, they are not yet partners with airlines like British Airways or Qantas.
