American Express Membership Rewards - UK Concierge Service - Please Inspire Me!

I've made very few attempts to use the concierge service both as a Centurion holder and previously on Plat. However, on the occasions I have, I've been really disappointed. These included:

An attempt to book "any exclusive London restaurant" at two months notice for a special occasion could yield only one which was readily available to all on the TopTable website

A request for Rolling Stones tickets one month in advance of sales opening - "We would have to phone ticket agents on the day, you are better off doing it yourself"

An attempt to get some champagne delivered to some relatives in the US for Christmas - "we have a central florist in the US who might be able to do something but you've left it a bit late". So I find a local wine merchant over there via the Net, call them and arrange delivery myself - something I thought Amex would have the ability/appetite/savvy to do for me.

I'm probably just unlucky or being unfair on them. Or am I? Does anybody have any inspiring stories of where the concierge service has gone the extra mile or produced something special/memorable/exclusive?



[This message has been edited by EssexBantam (edited 01-16-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by EssexBantam:
I'm probably just unlucky or being unfair on them. Or am I? </font>

You are not treating them unfairly, given the subject of your requests, as well as your lengthy time notice.

Any reputable/respectable concierge, or concierge service would have been able to fulfill your requests, as well as been more accommodating, and helpful.

Besides, American Express taunts, and advertises their concierge service:

"...and their own concierge to help with anything from special occasion planning and selecting ideal gifts, to locating unusual items."

[This message has been edited by DelrayChris (edited 01-16-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by EssexBantam:
Does anybody have any inspiring stories of where the concierge service has gone the extra mile or produced something special/memorable/exclusive?

</font>

How many examples would you like?

- Please find me the person who makes the brooms for the Harry Potter movies. Done and delivered as promised.

- Ticket information for this years VH1-Divas concert in Las Vegas. Done and delivered

- Friend at work spots a painting whilst on holiday. Comes back and wishes they had bought it, can't remember name of artist or picture. Description provided to AmEx, and approximate location of gallery. Picture found and delivred.

- Multiple concert tickets before they even go on sale, saves me having to get up at 9am on a Saturday. I like my beauty sleep!

- Information on the new 'baby' Aston Martin, delivered and a follow up call from Aston Martin.

- Been an idiot and left one of my bags at Orlando airport on the carousel. Phoned Concierge, bag delivered to my room an hour later.

- Tables at popular restaurants, done all the time. Even better, I need a Mexican cuisine restaurant tonight for 20 people. Done, and tabled booked.

Rolling Stones tickets should not be a problem, they were left waiting by there supplier but there was an allocation in the end. Robbie Williams wasn't a problem either. When you walk into your office and can tell a group of lovely admins that you got Robbie Williams tickets for them.....

A worthy benefit to the UK Centurion suite in my opinion.

Thanks,
Richard

Amex Platinum US/ Canada concierge was only useful once in tracking down an old VERY VERY hard to get Spanish audio CD that was no longer in production. NO other company was able to find a copy.

I think Amex changed concierge companies since then.



[This message has been edited by Flyaway (edited 01-16-2003).]

It is interesting that the Centurion people could not help EssexBantam in his situation, but seem to pull off miracles for RichardMannion, and both live in the U.K.

I wouldn't call them miracles. Some of them did take more than a day to research, you have to appreciate what you get in ratio to the annual fee.

If you go in expecting miracles, then you may be disappointed.

Thanks,
Richard

Richard - I'm amazed you receive such good service. I've had a little help in the past, but certainly not in that league.

Perhaps you're a priority customer??

The top Amex products really lack consistency with regard to the offered service. They do not live up to the standard which they set for themselves and yes, this really is disappointing!
I do not call often to ask for anything special except for things like golf tee-times. And frequently they do not know where the course is and want me to supply them with a phone number or address or tell me that it is impossible to book a tee-off time more than a day in advance, for example. They do not offer solutions. Then I call that golf club and ask kindly to get what I have initially desired and am normally successful. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

richards experience is amazing.

my first attempts (running plat in germany 1y) went out with ridiculous results:

asked for tickets for milano SCALA 3 weeks in advance. solution: "we called the official sales - sold out, we recommend the concierge in your hotel !"

asked for tickets of local famous comedians. solution: "we do not cooperate with this special organizer. please call yourself! - phone number? - we don´t have it right now!" i ordered the tickets myself - 10 minutes effort.

asked for delivery of living lobster in frankfurt to a friend in frankfurt. solution: "no - idea - none of our services". after 10 minutes of internet research it was done. ironically amex germany service is also located in frankfurt !!!

so imho "concierge" service - at least for my account - is not 1 $ added value...

[This message has been edited by PBateman (edited 01-24-2003).]

Hi Pbateman,

now don´t expect anything more from the Centurion service in Germany!

As soon as it comes towards something out of the ordinary, they have to quit or they can´t do better than any decend service-organisation, event manager or even youself!

Complete losers and another reason, why I dumped that card after not even one year.

PBateman, you experience of service is similar to mine. Do not expect more than using the card for payment purposes.
The so-called "Concierge" is never a "care-taker" at Amex but rather an unknowledgeable, occasionally even unfriendly, individual who tells you the get things done yourself.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by flamboyant 1:
The so-called "Concierge" is never a "care-taker" at Amex but rather an unknowledgeable, occasionally even unfriendly, individual who tells you the get things done yourself.</font>

Maybe RichardMannion knows someone high up to be receiving such wonderful concierge services?

Probably he does!
I read many threads in recent searches on the Amex forum and am at least assured that I am not the only one who is not offered acceptable service by Amex. Richard is probably the rare exception.

Richard, do you have a specific concierge who is assigned to your account?

I am opening a new thread about recebt Centurion service experiences in Germany ... let us not disturb the UK discussion here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum69/HTML/001551.html

(edited to add the link)

[This message has been edited by Uli (edited 01-24-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Uli:
I am opening a new thread about recebt Centurion service experiences in Germany ...</font>

Sharpish!!

No I don't have a specific concierge attaached to my account.

Thanks,
Richard

I agree that service with Amex is inconsistent and downright pathetic at times. Having said that however, my experiences with concierge in the UK have been outstanding.

In fact, I received an email from this morning which contained recipes for the Prego rolls and peri-peri sauce served by a particular restaurant I had dined at in Cape Town a few weeks ago! This is not an isolated experience and I can't say enough good things about the UK concierge.

The US is a different matter altogether. I was there in November and had packed the wrong adapter for my laptop charger etc...

I called the US concierge to ask where I could buy one. He made contact a few hours later and suggested that I should be able to buy one in any hardware store. Needless to say, I couldn't. Fortunately for me, a friend of mine managed to find something suitable.

I guess he had a coffee and gave it enough time to make it look like he had tried and then phoned through his best suggestion. I learned my lesson well - the next time I'll just call the UK!

Edited to add another concierge experience.

A while ago I tried to buy a friend of mine in the US a Louis Vuitton Palm Pilot case as a birthday gift. It was a high demand item at the time and it was coming up to Christmas. Many stores were simply sold out. I asked UK concierge if they could help.

After phoning umpteen stores, they turned to the internet and found a site that had them in stock. That was the good news. The bad news was that the site could not accept a UK issued card because of it having a UK mailing address. The concierge was determined to come up with a solution. She contacted Amex US and the cost was billed to them. Amex US then billed Amex Europe which, in turn, invoiced me.

Furthermore, the young lady who was sorting this out for me had left the office without letting me know that the whole thing had been sorted that evening. She called a colleague once she had returned home, after a long day, and asked him to call me to let me know that the mission had been accomplished. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Absolutely outstanding service.

PS I'm not Amex's greatest fan and nearly axed them last year but I like to think I'm objective. When the service is bad, it really is BAD, but, when it's good, I'm impressed at just how good it is.

[This message has been edited by Moriarty (edited 01-24-2003).]

My experiences have also been inconsistent in the past. The 'trick' is to get yourself known to a specific 'concierge' and requests will be done very well. If your name is well known anyways e.g celebrity, a regular purchaser of high value products through Centurion concierge, know someone in the concierge team etc.., then you will get very good service EVERY SINGLE TIME even if you ask them to search for something relatively cheap like a £100 'rare' item.

I use the Centurion concierge mainly to book private rooms in member clubs within London and I have always been satisfied. I don't know of any one organization in England that could offer this service (plus the other usual centurion benefits) for £650

What more can you expect for just £650 a year http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Try giving the Centurion team a high value task (e.g. hiring the Monte's club for a party) and they will execute it extremely well.

If you want smaller tasks done try http://www.wizz2u.com/ who are very good at organizing theatre, sport, cinema and event tickets etc...

I'm satisfied with the Centurion service. The concierge team is busy with so many members so don't ask me for a name at Centurion, like many 'non-famous' happy Centurion card holders, I prefer to keep mine to myself as I'm not a celebrity http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif I know it's pathetic but that's life!

Is there any difference between platinum and black concierge services here in the UK?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Internaut:
Is there any difference between platinum and black concierge services here in the UK?</font>


Yes, they are administered by different people in different buildings.

Thanks,
Richard

Thankyou. It would be interesting to see how they differentiate. I suspect the very nature of the service they offer would make this difficult, especially where the provisioning of a service may result in a high value transaction on one's Amex (perhaps all the really smart ones work on Centurian).

Regards
Internaut

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMannion:

Yes, they are administered by different people in different buildings.

Thanks,
Richard</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Internaut:
perhaps all the really smart ones work on Centurian</font>

I really don't think so. I know that a lot of Centurion cardholders prefer to call the Platinum line.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Moriarty:
I really don't think so. I know that a lot of Centurion cardholders prefer to call the Platinum line.</font>

Not of the 15 or so Centurion Cardholders I know, thye all use Concierge and are happy with it.

Thanks,
Richard

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMannion:
Not of the 15 or so Centurion Cardholders I know, thye all use Concierge and are happy with it.</font>

I didn't say that one was better than the other but I have been informed by Amex that they do have a number of Centurions who choose to use the Platinum line for travel and concierge services. Clearly there are 16 people who don't.

Maybe those Centurions are happier speaking to the same people that they're used to. I know that when a concierge comes through for me, I usually ask for the same person or just email my request to that person. Ditto with SPG for that matter.

Anyway, who am I to argue when they're the only ones who really know? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Well, I have just called platinum concierge (Canadian cardholders are routed to Boston) to have them get me contact information for the designer of a product I am interested in.

They are to follow up with me by this Wednesday. Perhaps I will need to ask Richard for help http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Found me 4 tickets for the sold out Cirque Du Soleil "Saltimbanco" at the Royal Albert Hall on the last Saturday night. This was all done in around 10 minutes, lots more good things to say and some bad, but the good far outway any bad.

Not very PC I know - the ad company who came up with this theme for Mastercard was worth every $.

Annual fee for Centurion - £650
Phone call to Lifestyle team - Free
2 Tickets for Kylie Minogue before they even go on sale - £70
Smile on friends face when she finds out she is going to see Kylie - Priceless (for me and for her http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif)

Thanks,
Richard