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Loyalty Program for Mileageplus / United Airlines

Sustainable growth needs fast time to market for fresh ideas - enabled by agile technology

After the successful go-live of LMS as the new software behind TravelBank – a component of MileagePlus – we are completely replacing the legacy IT platform behind United Airlines’ frequent flyer program. This is a huge modernization and data migration project, as the 100+ million member program is an important profit-driver and continues to grow.

100+

million members
The number of satisfied customers is already impressive, but still fast growing

40+

airline partners
Members can collect and spend miles through partner airlines worldwide

110+

non-air partners
Including partners in hospitality, car rental, financial services, OTAs, healthcare and many more

MileagePlus

United Airlines and its loyalty program MileagePlus -
the award-winning frequent flyer program

United Airlines (UA) is the third-largest airline in the world, by fleet size and number of routes, with over 90 million passenger p.a. and more than 330 destinations.

United Airlines is a founding member of the biggest airline alliance, Star Alliance, which offers customers a global network of travel destinations.

The MileagePlus program was launched on May 6, 1981, and currently has more than 100 million members. The airline offers a wide variety of partners ranging from such classic industries as hotel and transport to specific ones like finance and cruises, plus everyday shopping partners. Global Traveler magazine awarded United its Best Frequent-Flyer Bonus Program, and Best Overall Frequent-Flyer Program for the 15th consecutive year.

Main Challenges

01

UA faced challenges in keeping up with changing business requirements. Its technologically outdated platform with its complex architecture led to inflexibility and high efforts as well as costs for changes and operations.

02

The considerable resources required for change requests also resulted in
competitive disadvantages due to the long time-to-market.

03

Partner onboarding was a major success factor for the MileagePlus program,
but was very complex in handling with slow time-to-market.

04

Attractiveness and strength of the MileagePlus currencies needed to be increased, resulting in need for a new, more flexible platform that facilitates business changes with a much faster time-to-market.

Convinced by experience

To overcome these problems, the MileagePlus management team turned to Loyalty Partner Solutions for its wide-ranging technical experience and deep
business know-how. Its proven track record of integrating new loyalty systems into complex ecosystems and seamlessly migrating a huge amount of
customer data convinced United Airlines.

Results

Profitability

Decreased cost of operating and maintaining the loyalty solution through a huge gain in efficiency by replacing the existing platform with LMS.

Relevance

Greater relevance for customers through
a redesigned and thus more attractive platform.

Scalability

Improved program management as the member base and partner network continuously grow.

Time-to-market

LMS enables the Mileage- Plus team to react quickly and independently to changes in the market and in business requirements.

LMS enables United Airlines to grow its loyalty business by driving member engagement and by expanding its partner network, both at lower cost.
If you would like to know more about our work for United, download the full case study or leave a message with one of our loyalty experts!