OK, so I'm a little tired from a week on the road.

In the span of a few days, I experienced:

-A front desk clerk (at a W) telling me that an upgrade was not possible even though the hotel was empty and SPG.com showed tons of inventory. A call to an SPG ambassador cleared it up, but I had to make the effort to call her on it.

-A gate agent with USair told me that everyone in F had checked in even though I could see on her screen that this was not the case. I saw it coach and had to grit my teeth at an empty seat on the other side of the curtain.

-Someone at the Avis Preferred desk telling me there wasn't a single car on the lot that had a USB jack.

I'll admit, none of these are awful experiences. But they underline that even experienced frequent travelers must battle for what they deserve or settle for less. It makes traveling less pleasant. You commit loyalty and money and time to these programs and instead of just enjoying your earned benefits you must often push to get what you deserve.

Rental car agents telling me "there is nothing we can do to keep the Satellite Radio on after the complimentary subscription expires"

You should try having gluten intolerance issues and eating out at typical restaurants in America. Complete ignorance is easy to deal with - I sit there eating my back up pack of food. But when they claim food is gluten free because there's no pasta with it, and therefore they're not prepared to let you eat your own food, you know there's trouble ahead. It's a rare place outside big cities where the staff have any understanding of food.

Is America really the only country where this happens?
I'm guessing that many countries are this way re: gluten issues.sorry to hear of your week but your statement is true, one should be aware of the rules/perks.

I recall when I was a road warrior in the 90s, carrying around a printout of the T&Cs for Hilton Diamond when it seemed most every check-in was a fight for the breakfast perk.

The best way to deal with this is to take a deep breath and remind yourself that people who deal with the public may often be mistaken but seldom deliberately lie.

Actually, this isn't true. The hotel clerk who said their were no rooms available knew s/he was lying. The gate agent who said "first class has checked in full" had a screen in front of her telling her that isn't the case. People deny benefits like this because their superiors encourage them to or because they want to confer the benefits on some personal friend.

And they lie to do it.

It's also rare outside of big cities that people get so upset over restaurant food availability. Seriously, if you don't want to eat gluten, cook at home. Or if you're traveling, get a hotel room with a kitchen and cook there. Restaurants are free to choose if they'll follow the latest fad diets or not. And since, outside of big cities, few people follow fad diets, it makes perfect sense for restaurants not to worry about it.

People know what gluten is and isn't. It's just that most people roll their eyes at the "pardon me do you have fresh organic locally sourced gluten and peanut and soy free offerings on the menu" type questions. And it's easier for a restaurant to just say "no we don't" than say yes we do and then a micro-fiber or gluten food ends up on your plate and you have your lawyer on the phone ready to sue.

You should probably familiarize yourself with celiac disease.

So true. We went to a favorite restaurant (we're known my name when we walk in) with a friend who's allergic to difficult things, like garlic. We got a server who was new and when told of the allergy we were told "well, I guess this one thing would be OK." Knowing that they pretty much cook everything to order and that they're extremely willing to put something special together we flagged over a well-known server, who instantly gave us like 20 options of things they could do along the lines of "we have some really nice tomatoes and basil today, I could have the chef whip up a little fresh marinara...) After the dinner we had a little chat with the manager, and the new server didn't last long.

Focusing on the gate agent for the moment. In your earlier post you said the flight went off with an empty seat in FC. So the GA clearly didn't offer the seat to a friend. What is the GAs motivation to not offer the upgrade to anyone?

And what does "checked in full" mean anyway? My understanding is that CIF means every seat has had someone "check in" in advance, but that does not necessarily mean that every person will actually show up to fly. Some will change their plans and fly later, or tomorrow, or not at all. Which means that some of those FC seats will be available. 15 minutes before take-off, if any FC seats are still open then the GA is supposed to give out the upgrades per the order of the upgrade list. Even if you have already boarded, they're supposed to come get you and reseat you.

Sounds like your GA just wanted your flight to leave, and wasn't worried about what is "supposed" to happen.

I know what it is. Believe me, I have been told about the evils of gluten more times than I can count. My point is restaurants don't have to cater to every illness known to man, especially every disease like Celiac that affects less than 1% of the population. If they did, about the only items on the menu would be water. Well probably not since someone somewhere is probably allergic to that as well.

Adam Carolla had a funny bit about gluten allergies on his podcast recently....essentially saying nobody's allergic to anything when they're hungry and/or poor. But Americans being fat and rich, can afford to be allergic to everything under the sun. And it is interesting how 20 years ago when I was in school nobody was allerfic to anything. Today, 2/3 of the kids in my kids' class are allergic to something, which means my kids' lunches can't contain anything that's on the forbidden list.

Of course restaurants don't need to cater to every single illness known to man, but they should know what ingredients their dishes contain.

I actually know someone who's allergic to SALT. Makes dining out a true adventure.

If you look at Europe, first world parts of Asia and North America, yes, for the most part, the U.S. is the absolute worst, most ignorant place when it comes to celiac disease. Part of that is due to lawsuit paranoia, part of it is public perception of celiac as just another stupid celebrity fad, and part of it is just plain "Don't inconvenience me, because I'm too important to give a d@mn about your problems" attitude that often greets even minor questions about the menu or cooking technique.

Nope, not even close. U.S. diagnosis rate, doctor education rate, food safety laws, public education, etc. are a good 20 years behind Europe and Canada. I've heard, but not experienced, that much of Africa and South America are also better for celiacs because they cook more from fresh ingredients and use fewer processed foods.

What a nasty, ignorant load of crap.

Population studies show that up to 3% of the population may be celiac and it isn't based on income but unfortunately for most of those people, those studies also show that up 97% of them are undiagnosed because U.S. physicians are taught an outdated model of celiac disease which fails to recognize the full range of symptoms. Other recent research suggests up to 30% of the population may have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which commonly results in neurological problems, so of which may resemble AlzHeimer's disease. The problems for the low income segment of the population are that a) they often lack access to health care to get a correct diagnosis and b) lack the financial resources and access to healthy food options so that these people continue to suffer from a variety of health problems due to consuming gluten.

Potentially one-third of the population has a variety of health problems due to their immune system's reaction to a specific protein. Other societies have recognized that providing a safe food supply for the whole population has net benefits to society: reduced usage of health care resources, reduction in learning disabilities and behavior problems in children, more productive adults because they aren't chronically ill, etc.

Here in the U.S. some people would rather ridicule a medical condition than accept that it's a real problem.