Originally Posted by
eghansen
In general, reservation agents can do anything the want on the computer. However, airlines regularly run compliance scripts that look for reservations that violate company policy. A reservation agent can be confronted days later asking him/her why they did something they were not supposed to. That the passenger was 1k would probably be a sufficient reason to something that violated company policy.
If this is still true, it's unfortunate. I agree with what you described as CO procedure pre-merger. However, UA has routinely protected me when I've asked, with a good reason, both pre and post-merger, and as a 1k, Platinum, and Gold (actually Premier Exec at the time).
In fact, I've had it done for both myself and a Silver colleague within the last year, and that was on a direct flight, not even a connection, just a really bad weather issue that was preventing the incoming plane from taking off.
I hope the agent didn't get in trouble for this. In fact I hope they audited the transaction and she was rewarded. The flight cancelled and I was grateful. And it was the type of customer service that I will remember and balances out so many of the other bad experiences.