It is much cheaper to do small things to retain existing customer business than it is to gain new customers who might not have the same loyalties.

UA gives me a bottle of champagne or wine from time to time. Do I appreciate this? Absolutely.

UA has given me an operational upgrade before... did this make me feel valued? Without a doubt.

I have a far better example of something an airline did once, however, that touched me even further.

One day last October (back the day when the security lines were still LOOOONG and concourses crowded), I was waiting in a packed SAT terminal for an oversold AA flight home. I was balancing my laptop on one knee while trying to use a pay phone to dial in to retrieve a file I desperately needed to review on the flight home.

My frustration must have shown on my face because an airline employee approached me and told me he could "help make my life easier". With a smile, he handed me a one-day pass to Continental's club and offered to walk me down there himself.

Guess what? If I actually lived in SAT and not DFW, CO might have won some of my business that day. That decision by that employee really didn't cost the company a cent but it told me that (at least in that city at that club) they valued their customers.