Discrimination at United Airlines

I find it very surprising that airline employees are allowed to pick
and choose who they want to upgrade/bump, although according to the
responses below it seems to be an accepted practice. Huh. I've never
been asked to give up my seat on a plane before, but should it ever
come up I definitely want to at least observe to see what goes on at
the counter.

Regardless, I think the employee treated the OP in a very
disrespectful manner.

Have you considered the possibility that you actually WERE invisible?

I don't know if this applies to your case or not since you don't
indicate how you were discriminated against., but I have flown stand
by a couple times first class. I've found it helps to get picked if
you dress nice. I know when I try to fly standby I take the time to
look nicer. Same with my aunt who flies often. Maybe if you were
dressed frumpy that could have been why.

So why is it that you think he took other passengers before you, and
what is it that makes you think that?

I certainly agree that sometimes people are "overlooked" because of
the sort of person the "overlooker" thinks they are. I've written at
least one letter to that effect here, and it's a very common
experience for me. I further recognize that sometimes it is very hard
to explain to people who are not the frequent objects of that kind of
behavior how it is that you know it is happening and that it's not
some kind of confusion that could happen to anyone. However, when a
letter writer doesn't give *any* information about the nature of the
discrimination and the reasons for identifying it as such, it makes it
very hard to know whether the service representative was doing
anything wrong or whether it was simply an error.

Mr. Veliz certainly didn't do himself or his company any favors with
his "I don't have to explain it to you." Even if taking people who
arrived after you was an innocent mistake or was perfectly reasonable
given some set of circumstances that you and I can't recognize, it
would have been better to say something like that: "I didn't realize
you were here first" or something. But in general we reserve the word
"discriminate" -- which literally means nothing bad -- for situations
in which someone who is being treated differently from others when
they have a right to be treated similarly, and I can't really tell
from your letter why you had a right to be chosen for the upgrade and
voucher. At best, you seem to be proposing that you had a right to
the bennies being handed out on a "first-come, first-served" basis,
and I'm not sure why you did.

what exactly would be the basis you think he was discriminating
against you? height, weight, hair color, religious belief, sexual
orientation? There has to be more to go on for discrimination than
just your instinct.

And I agree with the others that if the situation did go down like
this, then there should definitely be some sort of reprimand. I just
can't understand how this agent spoke to you like that and no one else
around you (esp. his co-worker you spoke with) didn't check him.
There is no excuse to speak to anyone that disrespectfully - customer
or not.

I do agree that if he did indeed speak the way you state he does need
some training in customer service.
However, I also believe that had you spoken up immediately or even
asked where the line begins to volunteer for the tickets all of this
could have been alleviated.

Perhaps you were not standing in front of Mr. Veliz which is why he
took the passengers who came directly to him. You stated these other
passengers came up on your right which to me seems that you were
standing to the left of the line where Mr. Veliz was actually working.

You also state that he was being discriminatory, yet you do not write
why/how he was being so.
It appears he was ignoring you, but that is in no way being
discriminatory.

Those airline representatives are very busy. If you had spoken up
promptly, you probably would have gotten the freebie you were hoping
to get. Instead you got discriminated against for not opening your
mouth.

When you did finally spoke up, it wasn't in the most conversational
manner.

The early bird may not get the worm. But the VOCAL "I'll make the
first MOVE and SAY SOMETHING" bird gets the upgrade and free RT
ticket. Perhaps he thought because you were standing there meekly,
you had another issue to take care of.

They should have explained to you...
Are you a larger passenger? There was a letter on here recently about
how they are making their customers who exceed the width of one seat
pay for a second to avoid bothering neighboring pax.

You deserve and explanation, but he likely is correct in that he has
his pick.