By no way does this mean that a merger is sure to happen, but the unions of bankrupt American Airlines have decided to support a potential merger with US Airways. US Airways’ CEO has been hinting on a possible merger for some time now. The unions are backing this because AA is in trouble. As it went into bankruptcy, they announced 13,000 job cuts! A merger with US Airways could be a path to safety for AA.
US Airways itself came to be in its current form thru a merger. The …

I have to fly US Airways every once in a while. Going in and out of Charlotte (CLT), which I do every so often, forces one to do so. One of my peeves with US Airways (amongst several others), is that when earning miles on United, I would not earn a 500 minimum miles. Dulles (IAD) to Charlotte is 321 miles. United stopped giving the 500 minimum to even it’s Elites a few years ago and only awards the actual miles earned. Continental, on the other hand always gave the …

United and Continental have finally merged. As I pointed out in an earlier post, united.com and continental.com, the websites also merged over to the new site this past weekend. The new site is based on the original continental.com. In fact, most of the operational ascpects of the new United are based on Continental. They are using Continentals operating license, using Continentals reservation system, etc. Looks like all that’s left of United is the name, the headquarters and Economy+ seats (which is not a bad thing to keep at all).
In this …

United and Continental are taking the next big step in their merger this weekend – moving to a new common website. From what I have seen and heard, the new website will be based on the existing continental.com site. I personally liked the Continental site better than United’s. There is a reason United’s site was referred to as .bomb.
As with every big software release, nothing will go wrong… and if you believe that, I have some great deals on houses in Nevada for you. To make sure the transition goes …

Most bloggers are writing obituaries for the Continental OnePass Plus Card and advising you to apply for the Continental OnePass Plus Card soon. Well, I beg to disagree. From my limited understanding, my advice in general is: don’t apply for it. Unless

You have a targeted offer for 50K signup bonus.
You have already got your 50K signup bonus from the United Explorer Card and wouldn’t mind a credit hit.
You want to keep a Continental OnePass Plus card as a memoir and don’t mind losing out on 20K signup bonus.

Other than that …

Airlines are going thru tough times and interesting times. (Boy, did I resist starting this post with – It was the best of times, it was the worst of times). The global economic slowdown has hurt airlines; they have an ageing fleet (at least all the older carriers do); they have an ageing staff looking to retire, that too with benefits; and they have liabilities that are beginning to exceed their revenues and the margins required to fulfill them afloat. On the other hand, we have become a truly global …

In honor of the soon to come 2012, here is my list of Top 12 Articles of 2011. (See list of Top 11 Article of 2010). This list is based on traffic to their pages. I have excluded article that were posted in 2010 (The post – Air India switches to all non-stop routes to North America was the 3rd most read article and Boeing 747 Piano Bar article was the 6th most read article in 2011, despite both being written in 2010!). I also excluded all articles related to …

If you have earned status miles (EQM) in 2011 in both your United and Continental accounts, you need to act fast and link the two accounts. United is working on combining the programs in the first quarter of 2012. In the meanwhile, if you have earned miles in both accounts, linking them will allow you to:

Transfer miles from one to the other. If you don’t do this, United will transfer all your miles to the final combined account (but they still need to know that you have two accounts – …

That gives me some great benefits, such as free unlimited domestic upgrades, Exit row seats when I do not get upgraded, automatic Economy+ for when I don’t get the exit row, free checked bags and most importantly, Star Gold level on Star Alliance, for all my non-United travel. … My Balance: 50,970 – 5,000 = 45,970 Make a list of all other sources that earn you miles and see how many will come in for sure.

United has joined the bandwagon of going ‘Local, Social and Mobile’ by partnering up with TopGuest. I have written before about how TopGuest works (be sure to read my clarification post). Essentially, one can earn miles for being at a location and sharing it with your Social Network by ‘checking in’ on Facebook or FourSquare.
United is giving 50 MileagePlus Miles for sharing your location at select airports (I am assuming airports with a large United presence; all the hubs for sure). Once you do so by checking in of Facebook …