United Wants to Buy American Airlines: 5 Ways a Mega-Merger Could Hit Your Wallet

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby wants to buy American Airlines. And if he pulls it off, your next plane ticket and the pile of unused miles sitting in your account could both take a beating.

Bloomberg broke the news on April 13. Kirby floated a possible combination with American Airlines Group to senior government officials. He raised the idea during a February 25 White House meeting with President Donald Trump that was originally focused on the future of Washington’s Dulles airport.

No formal deal has been announced. But the conversation is real, and it’s already moving stock prices.

Here’s why you should care. The U.S. already has just four big airlines — American, Delta, United, and Southwest. United and American together control more than a third of the market, and a combination would create the largest airline on the planet.

That’s a lot of power in one cockpit. Let me walk you through exactly what it could mean for the money in your wallet — and what to do about it now.

1. Fares on overlapping routes would likely climb

Merger boosters love to talk about efficiency. The research tells a different story.

Economists John Kwoka and Evgenia Shumilkina found that fares rose between 5% and 6% in markets where a merger eliminated a prospective entrant. Other research on the 2008–2013 merger wave found similar upward pressure, especially on big-city routes.

United and American overlap heavily in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington. William Kovacic, director of the competition law center at George Washington University, told Reuters the overlap is so severe that no amount of divestitures would fix it.

Translation: expect higher fares on a lot of the routes you actually fly. And that’s on top of the creative fee structures airlines have already tacked onto the base ticket price.

2. Your miles could lose value almost overnight

Here’s the ugly pattern. When airlines merge, the combining loyalty programs almost always end up repricing awards — upward.

After United absorbed Continental, it raised the cost of a round-trip coach award from the U.S. to Japan to 70,000 miles, up from 50,000. American’s AAdvantage program eventually absorbed US Airways miles after that 2013 merger, then nudged prices higher too.

You don’t get a vote. The miles you earned under the old rules simply get repriced under the new ones.

That risk is precisely why the Department of Transportation launched a probe in 2024 into the loyalty programs of the four biggest U.S. carriers, specifically examining the devaluation of miles, hidden and dynamic pricing, and the impact of airline mergers on competition and customer choice.

If you’ve got a big AAdvantage or MileagePlus balance, consider this a warning shot.

3. Smaller hubs could lose flights and gain higher fares

When a mega-merger lands, secondary hubs tend to get thinned out. After United merged with Continental, Cleveland Hopkins lost more than 25% of its total departures, and travel agents in nearby cities reported tickets that used to cost $300 suddenly ran $500.

A United-American tie-up would put the same kind of pressure on cities like Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Charlotte — places where American currently runs big operations. Trim capacity there, and locals pay for it in both schedule choices and ticket prices.

Not every airport loses. But if you live near one that does, your travel budget takes a hit.

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4. Elite status and perks will almost certainly change

Any program merger forces a reshuffle. Two sets of elite tiers, two sets of upgrade rules, two different credit card partners. One version has to give.

That often means tougher spending thresholds to hit status, watered-down upgrade priority, and raised redemption prices on the flights people actually want.

It’s one of the reasons so many travelers are walking away from airline loyalty programs altogether — and a United-American deal would accelerate every complaint on that list.

If you’re chasing status right now, don’t assume the goalposts stay put.

5. The deal may not happen — but the threat alone is reason to act

Here’s the twist. Plenty of serious people think this deal can’t clear antitrust review. Antitrust lawyer Andre Barlow of DBM Law Group told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that a United-American deal would reduce the Big 4 to a Big 3 with one dominant player, raising competitive issues in many city-pair routes and hubs.

Even the Trump administration is signaling caution. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CNBC in April that the government would look at impacts on competition and ticket prices, and that merging carriers would have to peel off some assets because the U.S. doesn’t want one carrier with too much market share.

But here’s the thing. Whether or not the deal closes, both airlines now have reason to squeeze more revenue out of their loyalty programs while the clock ticks. Devaluations historically accelerate around big corporate changes, not after them.

What to do with your miles right now

Don’t panic-burn your stash on a bad redemption. Do make a plan.

Here’s my simple three-step playbook:

1. Audit your balances. Log into your AAdvantage and MileagePlus accounts this week and write down exactly what you have.

2. Price the trip you actually want. Miles are worth the most when redeemed for expensive international business class or a flight you’d otherwise pay cash for. Check award availability now.

3. Book before year-end if you can. The window between merger talks and the first “program enhancement” announcement tends to be short. Locked-in awards usually hold their value even when the underlying program changes.

And if you’re still piling up miles on an airline-branded card with no redemption plan, rethink the strategy. A flexible travel rewards card that isn’t tied to a single carrier protects you from exactly this kind of corporate reshuffling.

The bottom line

A United-American merger is, right now, just a CEO pitching an idea to a president. It may never happen. But fewer competitors almost always mean higher prices and lower-value rewards — that’s the lesson of the last 20 years of U.S. airline consolidation.

Don’t wait for the press release. Treat your miles like cash in a bank that just announced it’s being acquired: still spendable, still valuable, but worth checking on today rather than next year.