Playing United’s Optathlon Game/App for upgrades and discounts

So I got this email the other week from United on a promotion to win a millions miles in a sweepstakes and at the same time win prizes instantly including 10% off flights. I decided to check it out as I could use the 10% off a trip I plan to take to Asia.

The link takes you to United’s “Optathlon” website to play simple action games. You can also download them as apps for your mobile phone (more on that in a moment). It really doesn’t matter how well you do (at least to my knowledge) but just that you play the game. At the end of each game you have a chance to enter their sweepstakes to win a grand prize of one million miles. I never think I can win these things so I was really interested in a shot at an instant winner prize of a 10% e-certificate off United flights where you can try once per day. I’m happy to say after my fifth day of trying, I finally got the message that I was an instant winner of the 10% coupon! Not huge savings, but hey – a win is a win, and if you’re considering a trip to Asia in my case that’s $120-$150. You also get free entertainment value vegging out on a semi addicting game trying to beat the outrageously high scores of others that probably are spending way too much time playing. (Ok, i admit, I wasted maybe a half hour or more trying to crack the Top 100 in the “Line Jump Hero” game before giving up. I was close.)

As of this post there are only two games:

“Legroom Legend” is a game where a bratty kid throws stuff at you from the seat in front of you. The object is to kick them on your tray table. (It’s reminiscent of the classic bouncing babies or fireman game). With the right timing, you can get the objects on the tray in fewer kicks. I was a bit tired of this game after few tries.

“Line Jump Hero” is a strange but fun game where you’re scooting on your suitcase to launch over a line of people Evil Knievil style. The object is to jump as far as you can. You pick up speed by pressing the right arrow keys at the right time (think Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution) and then maneuvering mid-air to hit objects that further propel you and extend your airtime. Hitting these objects is more by chance than skill so there’s a lot more luck involved in this game. Your score is the combo of 3 jumps. I found this the more frustrating yet addicting game.

These games are available on both iphone and android devices. I can’t speak for the iphone, but on the Droid it’s a memory hog taking up a whopping 28MBs! (almost as much as Google Earth). It also utilizes quite a bit of resources. If you have a newer Android phone like a EVO 4G or Droid 2 I’m sure you’ll be fine. If not, expect long load times. Somehow the developers fell short on best practice of making this an efficient mobile app. As of this post, the Android Market shows less than 500 downloads with poor ratings with people thinking the app is malicious.   You can’t blame them for thinking that.  The 3rd party app developer is list as the author instead of United.

Ok the bad aside, the mobile apps do offer additional prizes you can’t win on the website version of the games – free upgrades and passes to the Red Carpet Club.   The intent seems to be to for travelers to play the game while waiting for their flight at the airport. If you are an instant winner, you show the screen to the gate agent to redeem your upgrade! If this game catches on, it will be funny to see everyone in the United terminals across the country trying to win before boarding their flight.

Play the United Optathalon games thru 10/31/10 at: www.optathlon.com
Or Download the mobile app on itunes or Android Market