Reporting a bit of a strange experience today with Concierge. Previously have found them to be quite difficult to deal with but occasionally helpful with certain things. City guides for example have definitely been useful in the past.
I have been trying to track down some contact lenses for my wife who likes a particular brand but is unable to find them anymore in normal UK retailers. After a bit of searching online it seems like a few places have them but International shipping can be difficult, or they do clearly ship to the UK but are in and out of stock. Seems like a good job for the Concierge to look for someone who has them or can combine one box from one place and one from another depending on what diopter they have in stock.
I have previously dealt with UK concierge by email so emailed the address - a reply came back saying it's not possible to email requests anymore and to instead call up (I hate doing this) or use the app. App sounds good so I paste the request in there.
Reply comes back after 45 minutes to say that requests are no longer served by email which is why my request was rejected previously (I had figured this out from the email saying exactly this). In terms of the actual request, the agent said:
In regards to your contact lenses request, unfortunately we do not have any suppliers that offer this type of item, our retail team can only assist with specific items (watches, jewellery, bags) and luxury brands (rolex, gucci, etc)
I find this absolutely amazing. I am not really sure if this is the actual policy or just an unhelpful agent -- if AmEx Concierge really won't help with such queries anymore, then it is surely not acceptable to describe the service as they do, and instead it should be pitched as more of a personal shopper who occasionally fires up Opentable...