Well, lest you missed it, I used speech marks around "gifted" for a reason.

That said, on the second part, we have had multiple threads on this forum about what happens when you give a Golden ticket/well done and the BA staff who kindly add knowledge to our pages have given lots of specifics. It is sent to both the crew member named and to their managers. It certainly doesn't come with any "value" but their experience certainly didn't sound as you mention in your last sentence. They also noted that some crew contracts include a part of customer satisfaction related pay (I believe it is LGW can't remember if it also affected Mixed Fleet??) for whom this could have an actual if indirect effect notably if a number of customers praise the same staff member.

That said, some of us do get touched when people make a small effort to recognise our level of service and say thank you for the sake of thank you and not attached to any material reward. I certainly do when it happens to me professionally (although my work is very different from airline staff so the context is actually a little hard to compare) and it's actually happened that I have had a crew member acknowledging - in fact quite emotionally - such praise (long story short, as is not unusual I sometimes bump into crew I recognise and in that case I flew with the very crew member I had sent about 2 weeks after the flight I thanked her for. My thank you followed a fairly specific situation so regardless of whether comments are sent to crew members named or not I think it was easy for her to know what issue this related to, and it also suggests that in that case at least, it was passed on to her not weeks/months later but very promptly indeed.