My wife got the 2k UA miles for $4.99 and this put her never used UA account to 25k. She will fly and if I go with her, we need to burn miles to do that trip. She will have UA on her mind after the flight and they can retain her as a customer if all goes well. Things like that still work but as some of us know, air travel today can be riddled with more problems than positive experiences. The only solid thing, therefore, is the mileage stuff.

From this perspective, both UA and Netflix make money in portal and relationship marketing. That is how most companies are doing it today and it's working magic.