It seems to me that with this second email, there may be a pattern emerging, though we'll have to wait to gather more data. My read on it is that they are starting to acknowledge that enough customers have issues that need to be addressed, and they're making some effort to attack easy and less substantial ones.

If I were presented with something similar from an employee to whom I had just delievered a kick in the pants, I would view this as a minimal and not very sincere effort, and they would be out of imminent danger of being put on a formal improvement plan yet still be on my list. As is United. I'm not leaving yet, but until they fix the big things such as lack of instant ticketing and timely (meaning next day) credit card refunds and mileage redeposit in the event of canceled bookings, I've stopped with the United evangelizing that I used to do to my social circle and I'm booking essential travel only. These issues that I mentioned aren't just convenient, they are essential. One can't travel and make downstream plans without an actual ticket and one can't use their hard-earned money or miles (which are a form of money, albeit the Monopoly variety) if a company is hanging onto it.