While it has already been deeply covered by the other blogs, I would be negligent if I didn’t also mention the welcome news from yesterday. Effective immediately, you can now freely move miles between your Continental Airlines OnePass account and your United Airlines Mileage Plus account. In fact, you can move miles back and forth as often as you like, but only once per day, in 1,000-mile increments, and up to 200,000 miles per transfer.

I did just that yesterday, and have to say that it was the smoothest and easiest process I’ve ever seen on the United website. I entered my OnePass number & pin with my Mileage Plus number & password, and was instantaneously shown my mileage balances in both programs, along with simple instructions on how to proceed. Within moments, I had transferred 32,000 miles into my Mileage Plus account from OnePass. It could not have been easier, and each account showed the adjustments immediately. Job well done, United, on a seamless application.

Being able to move your miles around in each program opens up additional redemption opportunities. New to United flyers is the ability to book Continental rewards on Copa, Virgin Atlantic, Eva Air, and more. Likewise, Continental flyers can now book Aer Lingus, Jet Airways, and Qatar Airways via United awards. These are of course in addition to the Star Alliance carriers each already had access to, as well as other airlines such as Emirates, Hawaiian Airlines, and Island Air.

Next up is the elite status match and consolidation announcement, and here it is straight from the source:

This is particularly good news for those who will achieve a new elite level by combining their elite qualifying miles from both programs. Some upgrade priorities have shifted a bit, which basically just puts everyone on a level playing field based on status and fare. Except, however, for those Continental Plats who fly between 75,000 and 99,999 miles. They’ll still only get matched to Premier Executive on United. Being the airline dork that I am, I’m also really looking forward to adding a Continental OnePass Platinum card to my collection of frequent flyer program cards.

While the combination of the programs overall wasn’t expected until much later this year, or even possibly next year, this is an early bonus and very welcome announcement. And again, the process worked so smoothly and seamlessly for me when I transferred miles, I have to say “Job well done!†once more to both Continental and United!