I am not at all conversant in the program, but I think there a scheme where you deposit money with United ( a significant amount) and you can assign status, the number and level of which depend on the amount deposited. Any I think you have to use the money in a year's time.

A quick search on FT didn't yield any threads for me, but maybe someone with more insight can chime in.
Or maybe I have it all wrong. Haha