First time here? Check out the site's "greatest hits" or read a random post from the archives. Feel free to ask a question, and consider subscribing to the latest posts via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been encountering US Airways a bit lately, and it hasn’t always been fun. A function of my recent move to North Carolina, perhaps. Hard to avoid US Airways in these parts. But having previously observed that United-US Airways codesharing and cooperation aren’t living up to their hype, I’m still convinced that these two Star Alliance partners aren’t working well together, and need to shape up their cooperation.

The breakdown of cooperation starts with the little things, right at the time of purchase: Why can’t the US Airways website allow me to enter my United frequent flyer number in the reservation? They’re both in Star Alliance, and other Star Alliance carriers let you choose from a range of different frequent flyer options.

Update: The option to add other airlines’ frequent flyer numbers is back on the US Airways site. Not sure what was missing when I booked, but it’s there now. Yay!

Admittedly, other sites have similar issues, especially third party booking sites — Orbitz, I’m looking at you. I bought a ticket on Orbitz recently when no one else would sell me that particular itinerary at a lower price. Again, no option to enter a partner airline’s frequent flyer account. I could enter a US Airways account number, or nothing at all. This limitation isn’t isolated to Star Alliance, either. If you, say, book a British Airways ticket, you can only enter a British Airways frequent flyer number, and not an American Airlines number. (Expedia is much more flexible with frequent flyer accounts.) Alliances and partnerships aren’t new, people! Give us the option!

The cooperation breakdown continues at check-in: My wife bought a United-coded ticket for an all-US Airways flight on United.com (the UA-coded ticket was cheaper) but when she got to the airport to check in, she was told that the ticket wasn’t paid for. Apparently, United hadn’t transmitted the funds to US Airways, and the ticket was still listed as reserved, not issued. Her United receipt (and credit card statement) showed that it was indeed paid, but until the ticket number was manually entered into the computer record, she wasn’t getting a boarding pass.

This is stupid. I know there are incredible complexities that arise when large organizations attempt to integrate or link their data systems, but if the increasing frequency of these kinks is any indication, the problems are getting worse with time, not better.

Related:
- Star Alliance out of alignment: Are United and US Airways fighting codeshare wars?
- Update: US Airways and United codeshare conundrums
- Confused by codeshares? Sue!

(image)