Rich, Thanks for the well written report. The reason they just ask e-ticket holders what airline they are on, and waive them through if they say UA, is well...Many people would not think of saying they are on a different airline if they needed to get down to the UA gates. It would never occur to them to say they had an e-ticket on UA. So, they would be told they could not go to the gates. Like the person that picks somebody up at the airport once each two years? They would not think to say "oh yah, I have a UA e-ticket." They would say "oh, I'm picking up my brother Al." Such a seemingly unsophisticated system can work to keep the infrequent flyer out of the gate areas, because they believe the system works, and do not know the lingo that we know. How simple systems can really be.