Q&A: United's Mileage Plus chief answers your frequent-flier questions

CHICAGO -- USA TODAY's Ben Mutzabaugh recently sat down with Graham Atkinson, the president of United Airlines' Mileage Plus frequent-flier program. Atkinson also agreed to a take questions submitted by Today in the Sky readers.

The Q&A session kicks off today, with Atkinson touching on subjects like the double elite-qualifying-mile promotions currently being offered by most big airlines. Come back Monday afternoon for our next installment.

Ben Mutzabaugh:Thanks for sitting down with me today to answer a few questions for our Today in the Sky readers. Our readers have submitted some great questions for you, but before we get to those, is there any upcoming news that people might be able to read about first in Today in the Sky?

Graham Atkinson:Well, we've always got things in the works.

I was appointed to this new role in October of last year as the president of Mileage Plus. And we already had program changes for 2009 well in the works, so I don't take credit or deep blame for any changes we made this year. But more seriously, one of the rationales for my appointment and one of my first assignments was to take a step back and look at our program in the context of its competitiveness as one of the legacy airline programs. But also to more broadly to think about what is a loyalty program in the wider sense, given that the competition is changing and is increasing.

We're very conscious of that and we've been doing some pretty interesting work over the last three months to take a view on that. Out of (that) is coming, I'd say, some interesting ideas that we're certainly not ready to talk about yet, but I think people should be very reassured that we see this (Mileage Plus) as not only a very important asset for United, but a very important and valued benefit for customers. That may be a statement of the obvious, but (it's an area where) we believe there is more opportunity if we do good hard work and listen to the customers and give them what they want.

Mutzabaugh:So stay tuned?

Atkinson:Definitely stay tuned. Some of the ideas that are beginning to ferment, I think, are quite interesting.

Mutzabaugh:Let's start with the double-elite-mile qualifying offer, where customers can earn miles that count toward earning elite status twice as fast. That's not an unusual offer for airlines, though such offers usually don't come until the end of the year. US Airways started off this year's round early – in February – and now every big airline pretty much has their own elite-qualifying offer out there. What is the goal for the double elite-qualifying-mile (EQM) offer? Is it to stimulate demand? Is it to lure business travelers who are booking anyway, but maybe not with United?