Please be careful commending employees when they have given you a waiver or a favor that the United brass would consider a bending or breaking of the rules.

Example: A local AUS agent known to me was trying to protect me enroute to Europe. My AUS-ORD-XXX routing was slowed down because of weather. I had purchased a lowly W fare, and had been upgraded to C class using a SWU. She got me on a later flight in C class, going AUS-IAD-XXX, or so she thought. While asking me if that schedule would work, the last seat in C disappeared. What the heck, she said, I guess the only seat I can give you is F class, even though there were plenty of coach seats left. So there it was, the rare double upgrade. Protecting me with a different routing is routine service. Giving me one of the last seats in F from IAD on a bad weather day was beyond what the UA management wants to see happen.

I thanked her of course. But I knew better than to write UA praising her for excellent service. She would probably be disciplined instead of commended by her superiors.

I've looked for other occasions to write words of commendation for this particular agent. Once I praised her in the presence of the station manager. Seemed to be received well.