To Do: Combine Your American, US Air Accounts

As reported here, American has merged the accounts of US Airways Dividend Miles members into the AAdvantage program, consolidating American and US Airways accounts into a single account wherever it could be determined that the same person owned both accounts.

According to reports from program members, most duplicate accounts were successfully identified and combined. But some were not. For the auto-merge process to work, key data fields in the two accounts must have matched. And if there were discrepancies, the two accounts could not be merged.

Beginning this week, in the final phase of the program integration, members of both airlines’ programs whose accounts were not automatically merged can manually combine their accounts.

The first step is to check to see if your AAdvantage and Dividend Miles accounts are still separate. If they are, log into the account you wish to keep, using the username and password for that account. Then, under Helpful Links, click on the “Merge Accounts” link and input the requested information for the second account.

American advises that it takes “about a day” for the accounts to be combined, but many program members have reported that the turnaround time was actually much faster.

Once the accounts have been combined, you’ll have more miles to redeem, and perhaps a better chance of earning elite status as well.

Reader Reality Check

Did your American and US Airways accounts automatically combine?

This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.