I can't count the times I have had a concierge check me in when I am running late for a flight. Also, sometimes I have been running to the airport to catch an earlier standby flight but I would miss the cutoff and they have a BP printed and waiting for me at a pre-determined area. So I would miss these flights but when I have called them they have been willing to check me in and since I use roll on luggage I have never missed an opportunity to leave early.

On some flights that are filling up I have had the concierge put a good word in at the gate to ask if the spot beside me could be filled last if there are going to be any empty seats and it has worked. Can't say for sure if my doing this would have resulted in the seat staying empty (though I wouldn't hold my breath for my success)

The one time that there was going to be a major delay for me because of a late inbound aircraft a concierge in YWG phoned me on my cell (which I gave to them the one and only time I met them) and let me know that I should come to the airport for a while and they would secure our seats. That same concierge had the lead gate agent for our flight hunt my wife and I down in the lounge to keep us up to date with what was happening with our flight The concierge did this because their shift was finished before we were scheduled to check in.

In all of these instances I had either never met the concierge in question personally or just 1 time. So thanks Ferrari for making me dig a little deeper on how great the concierge have treated me over the past year even when I don't "know them personally".

I understand that others will have different experiences and I can't speak to those. Ferrari, I realize that you fly a lot more than I do so you have likely had more encounters with concierge than myself and thus a greater chance to have things go wrong. I on the other hand really have had great success with them and yet to be let down by them even once

I agree 100% that we should discuss any area that AC can improve upon, even the concierge. The thing I would like to point out here is that just like yycguy2 pointed out, the number of concierges is shrinking and they are having their duties altered to take away from their core mission. Without acknowledging this we may very well run into something similar like this next year and I for one don't even want to imagine what travel would be without them even at this level


[This message has been edited by cattle (edited Mar 13, 2004).]