On Valentines Day, what gifts are the merging airlines going to give us? Flowers, or just frequent flyer bonus miles for sending flowers from FTD.com through their respective sites.
Confused? Today’s topic is what happens to mileage redemption awards if/when Delta and Northwest merge, which will cause Continental and United to merge. I guess this means that I am truly a travel junkie if I’m thinking about this even before anyone merges.
My theory is that mileage awards will creep to the highest common denominator between the two airlines merging.
So, let’s take a standard set of awards and make a little chart. The awards will be:
- Domestic Coach
- Domestic First Class
- Europe Coach
- Europe Business
- Europe First Class
- Australia Coach
- Australia Business
- Australia First
That should be a nice sampling. I picked Australia because it is usually one of the highest mileage destinations (with the exception of South Africa) that people want to save up their miles so they travel in the comfort of Business or First Class. Please note that these mileage numbers are only for the airlines “saver-type” rewards which have the most black-outs and least availability—double them for the less restrictive awards.
And some weird notes: Continental offers award flights on Delta, and Northwest offers award flights on Continental. Of the four airlines involved, only United offers three-classes of service on it’s international routes. American Airlines offers limited three-class service on some of it’s transcontinental and overseas routes.
Conclusion: Who Wins or Loses?
My guess is that Continental frequent flyers have the most to lose, but the numbers aren’t huge. The 20,000 mile domestic award is short hop award for flights less than 1500 miles, it’s 25,000 for the standard domestic award. What is telling to me is that both Continental and United have mileage levels lower than the other two — would a hook-up cause Unitinental to up all their overseas awards to match DeltaNorth? I can’t imagine United giving up it’s overseas three-class service and losing that business to American and the foreign carriers. As a United flier, I’m looking forward to many more destinations in the Caribbean and the South Pacific if the merger happens — but, oh what a bunch of aircraft for them to redo.
okay, that’s even too FFWish for me!!!!!!
And, if you want more information, check out this article and accompanying blog comments:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5546746.html
Here is one item that I didn’t consider in a Unitinental program:
“Both United and Continental frequent-flier programs have various tiers that offer better benefits for passengers who hit higher mileage marks. United requires travelers to get to 100,000 miles to get to its top tier, while Continental sets the bar at 75,000.”