My neighbor is a UPS pilot. We were talking about flying during the christmas party last week and talked about United. He has never enjoyed any kind of special treatment with UA, but admits he has never asked... He is now flying Southwest for his commute, couldn't care less about first class for a two hour flight.

Is it possible there is more to the OP's story that he/she wasn't aware of? Maybe the pilot has status with UA? Maybe they missed a connection on XF award tickets, waitlisted for first? Who know's, but lets hope there was a logical reason to what happened.