This is the first time I've said something positive about UA since before the Glenn Tilton days. UA has been on my personal 'do not fly' list for many years. Although due to pricing and routing, I occasionally do fly them. I flew to CVG to SFO on December 20th and stupidly left my Apple MacBook Pro behind. I filled out the online form. After a few days of reading depressing Flyertalk experience with UA Lost & Found, I gave up. Low and behold about 72 hours later it made it's way back to SFO where I picked it up. Amazing. Kudos to UA.

My guess is including the serial number in my report made an immediate positive match when they entered it into the system as the laptop had no other identifying information (stickers, business card, etc.). Most items don't have serial numbers so it's hard to make a match of "black sunglasses with scratch on lens."