United Continental Holdings, the holding company for both United Airlines and Continental Airlines, has decided to reward MileagePlus and OnePass members for sharing their location at any participating airport using Facebook or Foursquare’s existing functionality.

The company, which has tied up with Topguest for this initiative, is going to offer its members real-time, special personalised offers for immediate use – including dining offers for nearby restaurants, car rental offers in their destination city for last minute travel, and the ability to earn extra bonus miles for shopping at participating in-airport merchants.

Members will also earn 50 award miles for their eligible social check-ins.

MileagePlus and OnePass members can activate this mobile social commerce and loyalty product by visiting http://mileageplus.topguest.com or http://onepass.topguest.com from their mobile or web browser and connecting their Facebook or Foursquare account.

Initial personalised offer partners include over 10,000 restaurants participating in MileagePlus Dining, hundreds of merchants at the Denver, Houston Bush Intercontinental, New York/Newark Liberty, and San Francisco airports, Avis Car Rental, and Hertz Rent-A-Car. United expects to add additional offers in 2012.

With each of these personalised offers, the member can earn additional award miles for completing a transaction with the participating merchant.

Dave Anderson, managing director of Mileage Plus Holdings, highlighted that the company’s most-engaged members are active on social networks, especially when they are travelling.

The new initiative is a way to interact with members and add value to their travel experience, said Anderson.

For Topguest, this launch of the product marks the largest implementation of Topguest’s new White Label SaaS product to date.

Commenting on this new partnership with United MileagePlus and Continental OnePass, Geoffrey Lewis, Topguest Co-Founder and senior director of social loyalty for ezRez Software, said, social engagement on mobile devices will fundamentally transform established loyalty programmes and “unlock countless new monetisation opportunities for frequent flyer miles”.

Earlier this week, ezRez Software, a software-as-a-service provider of travel, loyalty and payment solutions, acquired Topguest, a San Francisco-based startup company.