Top Analyst Warns United: MileagePlus Changes Could Kill Loyalty—’If You Don’t Have Their Credit Card, You Don’t Matter’

United announced that they are slashing points-earning for flights by up to 40% unless you have one of their credit cards. If you do, you’ll earn slightly more.

And they’re making it both official policy and clear marketing that awards are more incrementally more expensive both for customers who do not have status status and who do not have the credit card.

This is all part of the airline’s goal to raise MileagePlus profits by 50% in four years, something the carrier attempted and failed at before.

Henry Harteveldt offered some words of wisdom on this effort on this week’s Airlines Confidential.

• It’s fair for United to try this
  
• There’s no mistaking that the credit card drives profit, and the airline views those customers with the card as valuable (and those without it not valuable)
  
• But the effort has risks, and leaves out a lot of loyal customers.

I’ve actually managed these programs when they were really called loyalty programs and they were about loyalty and we have to remember loyalty is an emotion and it’s a two-way street.

…We can’t call these loyalty programs anymore and we can’t and shouldn’t call them frequent flyer programs anymore. These are travel spend programs and what United is saying to people very clearly is if you don’t carry a Chase co-branded credit card with United, you literally do not matter as much to us. Your money is not as green as the person who has that credit card…

That’s United’s prerogative as the business owner and they certainly have created a lot of incentives for people to carry the credit card now in some ways they copied Delta, Delta and Amex give you a 15% discount on award redemption if you have one of the qualifying Delta American Express co-brand credit cards and..

…[W]hat this does is feed the decline that we are seeing in our research about brand loyalty to airlines. We had seen in our research that we conduct every year with 5,000 or more airline passengers in the US that it had been hovering around 13% to 14% of airline passengers saying they are loyal to at least one airline or airline alliance. in our 2026 most recent survey that has now declined to just under 12%. So congratulations, airlines, you’re so focused on the credit cards that you’re killing people who might otherwise form loyalty to you. And I consider myself a free agent. I know a lot of other people who consider themselves free agents. And I think that there’s a risk some of this might unintentionally backfire on some of the airlines.

[There are people] who would look at this and say if I carry a certain Chase United card, I can almost double the number of miles earned on my eligible spending. And for them if that’s what they value and if it works for them financially terrific and that’s fine and they have the carrot in that they do offer lower award redemption levels again that’s fine that you know it’s how United is choosing to go to market but there are people who can’t or don’t want to get another credit card and there is a risk that some of those consumers may say well United just really doesn’t value my business or me so I’m not going to avoid United but I won’t necessarily seek them out either.

Henry makes the important point that there are customers who won’t or can’t get the card, but whose business the airline still wants. United is a global airline with important customers around the world without access to a United credit card. United has plenty of customers not in a position to get a card. That’s not just poor credit, but also new credit – an expat business executive flying worldwide in business class but without a deep U.S. credit history.

I’d add that in many cases these U.S. customers who don’t yet have deep credit are among the people most likely to get the card in the future.

• They grow and mature and earn more and build credit
  
• And they’re already flying United, love the brand and the program

United is trading ‘let’s convert everyone we can to the card now, with a stick as well as a carrot’ for cultivating customers who will help their card portfolio grow over time – in fact, chasing those customers away telling them that today they aren’t valuable.

They’re doing this, too, by eliminating all mileage-earning on basic economy fares. If all a member does is earn on a few basic economy trips, they won’t have enough points for a redemption and costs to the program. Those redeemable miles matter only if the member engages further. But these fares are often younger, newer travelers – and you want them joining the program and feeding the top of the funnel for cardmember acquisition.

It’s an open question how big an effect these changes will have on the pool of members who don’t have United cards today but who may in the future. They’re going to add some cardmembers now defensively who don’t want to lose value from MileagePlus, but they’re also going to chase away other customers who will never get the card as a result.

Is this a brilliant move, or one that takes the shift to being ‘just a card program’ too far?