Originally Posted by eigenvector

Unplanned surprises like this also speak to the culture and management of the company. Does Joe Blow employee on the Twitter feed feel empowered to start making phone calls to gate staff when he sees that an FF will be hitting 2MM in a few hours or does he need to clear everything that isn't a documented benefit by three levels of management (by which time Mr. Newly-2MM will be off the plane and at home in bed)?

If you want your customer service to be truly top-notch in undocumented ways, you need to give your front-line staff the tools to actually deliver that, which means having a bit of discretion to do something special.