Following up on our feature story in April’s issue, we continue to worry about the makeup of some frequent flyer programs if certain rumors come true. And more importantly, what the landscape will look like in the near and far future for benefits and competitive partnerships. In that article, we weren’t all that happy with the then rumors of United and Continental, citing “This potential merger is an example of why we wish mergers were not pushed to happen — it brings with it more heartache and headache than any other merger.” We went on to say, “Should the Continental-United scenario not fall into place because of Continental’s pride in running a very good airline, there’s always the back-to-the-drawing-board option for United to return to US Airways to ‘pump’ themselves up.” Seems we were right and for that reason, we’ll take a closer look at what a merger might look like.