Originally Posted by rruaco

I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree here. Relying on "the computer says no" leads to bad customer experiences.

On the rare occasions when I travel with my partner I want UA to go the extra mile to make it smooth, even if it means manual fixes, overrides and bending the rules. I know you guys do well on an averaged out basis and can cope with the occasional screw up, but one bad experience for her means you just messed up half her flying for the year and that makes her unhappy, and by extension it makes me very upset with UA.

Agents should be trained well enough that they can identify a place where the process has broken down (e.g. a MM nomination hasn't been done in time by UA) and override the system to make things work as they are supposed to, rather than how they are programmed to.

Were I the gate agent (in an ideal world) I would have asked for some reasonable proof of marriage such as ID in the same name at the same address. If that checked out, I would have overridden the system because I know the MM nomination process is currently b*rked.