What's United planning? Big MileagePlus announcement coming, executives hint
United Airlines has something up its sleeve when it comes to the future of United MileagePlus.
For months, the airline has been leaving cryptic hints about "really big ideas" it has for the future of its loyalty program.
And the breadcrumbs kept dropping this week.
During the company's Wednesday earnings call, United chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella teased a big loyalty announcement, of sorts, that appears to be just around the corner.
"[We] will have a lot more to say about this," Nocella told analysts. "And we're going to say something within the next 10 weeks."
That's foreshadowing, to say the least — though it's little to go off of for frequent United flyers wondering what this could mean for their Premier perks, miles or cobranded credit cards.
In the meantime, though, changes are already afoot.
Coming soon: United's ultraluxe Polaris product, fancy new cabin is just weeks away
United's loyalty shake-up
Last week, United announced a big leadership shake-up at the top of MileagePlus.
Now leading the loyalty program: Jarad Fisher, an executive whose resume includes helping to supercharge the tie-up between Delta Air Lines and American Express — the most lucrative airline-bank partnership that currently exists in the U.S.
More recently, Fisher helped launch the Apple Card in 2019.
And that pedigree, combined with this apparent "major announcement" about MileagePlus, grabbed the attention of Wall Street this week.
One industry analyst predicted United could look to the Apple Card rewards setup as inspiration for MileagePlus in the future.
"We can envision more real-time rewards transparency similar to Apple's Daily Cash, initiatives to enable more frictionless use, increasing value-add redemption options," TD Cowen's Tom Fitzgerald wrote in a report Thursday.
The information for the Apple Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Worth noting
An ironic sidenote to all of this: JP Morgan Chase, United's banking partner, announced this month plans to become the new issuer of the Apple Card, currently issued by Goldman Sachs. The transition is expected to take two years.
United predicts big profits from MileagePlus
For United's part, the carrier has said it hopes to double the profits it makes off MileagePlus by the end of the decade.
Industry analysts have predicted that cash influx would come in large part from a renegotiated cobranded credit card deal with Chase.
Airlines make billions of dollars off their banking partnerships, none more than the $8 billion Delta just pulled in from Amex in 2025.
United and Chase's current deal — at the time it was struck — was slated to run through 2029.
Related: United launches mileage-earning debit card with unique savings tie-in
But the Chicago-based carrier doesn't seem content to wait that long to make other changes.
"We have a legacy contract that continues with our banking partners," Nocella acknowledged Wednesday. "But we still have plenty of ideas to produce growth and revenue in the meantime."
It sounds like we'll hear those ideas within the next few months, so stay tuned.
Good to know
United on Wednesday said it grew revenue from its loyalty program by 9% in 2025 versus 2024. For the third year in a row, the carrier noted, United flyers added more than 1 million cobranded credit cards to their wallets.
The one bit of good news MileagePlus members already learned in recent weeks is that the airline chose to not hike Premier status qualification requirements in 2026, which means the path to elite status remains intact for another year.
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