canadiancow

My suspicion is that SE travel is down 90% but concierge staffing is only down 50% (pick other numbers, the point stands).

So they've got a lot of time on their hands.

Outside of SFO, it's rare a concierge would look for me unless I'm in trouble (and even that is not consistent).

acysb87

The concierge service was very strong for the last 18 months pre Covid.
They were calling, meeting , greeting....,,even at D gates . My last exchange with two of them was at D gates in February where I was delivered a Valentines Day treat. Mrs acysb87 was along and found it amusing to hear me called to gate D7 . A busy day with many others watching .

canadiancow

You have very different experiences than me in Toronto.

In the past 18 months I've been told I'd be met in Toronto (without asking), and wasn't.

Nitehawk

Yea, I've generally found the quality of the concierge service to be consistently dropping (certain stations/agents excluded)...until covid. The last experience I had that I can remember in YYZ, I had to walk to the concierge office (exiting security while on hold to speak to one) and they took my confirmed J class (lat pass complimentary ug) ticket and put me on standby for an earlier flight, that was J1... despite my protests. I had to cancel the flight and rebook it in a hurry through res to grab the last J seat, my standby cleared into PY (not sure how that worked on a canceled ticket).

acysb87

Many agents are new, some of the long term are still around
Make a point of getting to know them , personally helped a lot

canadiancow

The reason I can't get a concierge when I'm misconnecting is because people are "getting to know" the local concierges, occupying their time for no good reason.

I want to be part of the solution, not part of the "I must be escorted on the flight" problem.

Adam Smith

cow, that attitude is incredibly selfish, and inconsistent with your own behaviour.

You've said before that you will e-mail the airport concierges to ask them to do certain things that you could do yourself, or have reservations or the 1-800 concierge do. Your rationale was that you trusted they would execute those tasks when they weren't otherwise occupied.

It's EXACTLY THE SAME for those of us who choose to pop in to the concierge office and say hello to the concierges as we pass through. If the concierges are busy, they will politely wave us away, and we won't chew up their time. If they're not busy, they can take a couple of minutes to chat with us.

So either you believe that the airport concierges can adequately prioritize their tasks, and you should quit whining about people visiting them, or you need to stop asking them to handle upgrades and other mundane things that you could do yourself or have taken care of by a less scarce resource.

(There are bad concierges who will focus on the wrong thing at the wrong time; there are bad SEs who waste concierge resources getting walked on to the plane etc; but neither of those is the subject at hand here - there is a huge difference between spending a couple of minutes to converse with someone in the concierge office vs dragging them all the way through security and on to a plane, and you should stop equating the two. I will also reiterate that AC is wasteful in having a bunch of concierges escorting people around the stupid BMW service in YYZ when someone without the training and access of a concierge could just as easily hold an iPad and walk someone a few hundred feet. But again, that's not the issue here)

I don't think that people having a chat for a couple of minutes with concierges is at all impactful to whether or not you (or any of us) can get the necessary service at crucial times. I would argue that bad concierges and AC's deployment of resources (whether failing to schedule enough of them, or wasting their time on the stupid BMW service, or other) are far more to blame. I also think that your expectations are, at times, unrealistic. I hate to say it, but as much as you fly, you're not AC's only customer. Sometimes there are only so many resources in the system and you're not going to get them, even if they're deployed optimally and no one is wasting any concierge's time. They might already have their hands full dealing with other people misconnecting and you have the bad fortune to reach out to them when they're already slammed. Same goes for any of us.

canadiancow

Absolutely not.

If I can do it myself, I do it myself.

If res can do it and I can make a phone call, I call res.

I consider synchronous communication with concierges to be more scarce than the email, because I'm tying them up NOW, as opposed to when they have a chance to read the email.

Yes, I trust they'll execute those tasks when they don't have more pressing things to do. And I've had to call at T-2 when I haven't had a reply from my T-24 email about check-in issues.

Wanting to have a friendly chat with someone at the expense of other people who may be misconnecting is selfish.

I want to avoid friendly chats so that misconnecting SEs and those in paid J can receive the service they've paid for.

Jasper2009

But it's not necessarily a binary decision.

I see nothing wrong with a SE dropping by at the concierge office. If the concierges are reasonably busy, you leave them alone. If one is sitting at the desk and three other concierges are just standing around, why not have a friendly chat?

At various outstations it's also not uncommon for the concierges to proactively wait for / meet / look for / talk to any SE pax - whether at the check-in counter, in the lounge or at the gate.

I've frequently experienced this at SYD/TPE/TLV and to a lesser degree at FRA/LHR.

At Canadian airports this is less common, but not unheard of either. E.g. when AC still operated the YEG-LHR non-stop flight, the concierges would always make their way around the MLL and chat with SEs. They also keep a list of all SEs departing on a given day and try to connect with SEs during less bus ytime periods.

Adam Smith

You absolutely mentioned, at one of the virtual Dos, e-mailing airport concierge to take care of some mundane things that could have been handled elsewhere, because we debated this same subject at that time. And you defended a former colleague of mine who I mentioned e-mails the concierge for even more mundane things that I thought she should have had res/call centre concierge deal with, on the basis that the concierges would deal with it when they had time.

It's not either/or; stop treating it like it is. There are plenty of times when the concierges aren't all that busy and can have a friendly chat.

Is this all because you think Nick was having a friendly chat with someone that time that he didn't help you and the other seven misconnecting Super Elites? Because that story comes up way too often in this context.

There are good concierges and bad concierges. Bad concierges don't manage their time well and don't do a good job of helping the people who need help. Good concierges do. In my experience, the bad concierges are also the ones least likely to have a friendly chat with people.

canadiancow

Okay Adam and I had a chat.

Some concierges will glance at their email every 10 seconds while you have your 5 minute chat with them. That's fine.

I'm much more concerned about the ones who don't, while you have your 45 minute chat/argument/"gee I wish AC operated differently".

Adam Smith

Yes. And while concierges need to be conscientious about making sure they're attending to more important things than having chit-chats, it's also incumbent on responsible SEs to try to read the cues and make sure they're not burning up concierges' time on idle conversations when the concierges may have more important things to do.

WaytoomuchEurope

Can a concierge fetch me extra pillows?

acysb87

A wee bit touchy huh?

We were not escorted onto flight, but we were a misconnect off a BGI/YYZ flight.
Will advise concierges you are likley misconnecting and send them looking for you

expert7700

Concierge offices handle alot more than just misconnects and emergencies. In Toronto, one can pickup clues when walking by the office. Are the two desks occupied? are the agents sitting there looking bored?

As the pay rate and seniority has gone down, some local agents have become less useful as problem solvers. So if they are mainly printing boarding passes and checking bags , use them for that.

Last year at YYZ helping 2 SEMM friends: "can you SDC them to this flight that closes in 5 minutes before the standbys and upgrades occupy the 2 J seats they need?" was not dealt with efficiently or correctly. Can't be done , too close to flight time, ticket not entitled, and go to the gate I'll just tell the agent to try and help you after boarding starts were all said. So instead we went to the chairs and called the concierge hotline for them, who reopened the now closed flight a minute before upgrades were cleared and did the SDC. (heck, we could have been further ahead if we didn't make a mad dash for concierge and instead called SE desk upon arriving from the connecting flight)
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​​​​​​Some in our group wanted to show off our success to the same unhelpful agents by walking back in for new boarding passes but I told them to use discretion and get them from the nearby elite checkin counter.
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Another time last summer, a concierge coordinated getting a lost passport to me on a different AC flight. I was assured it was done so I flew to YYZ. Turns out the concierge forgot to send the gate an authorization form they had agreed to, so my passport wasn't loaded.

Perhaps, according to recent posts on this thread these and all other concierge glitches can be explained because someone else was occuping their time for pillows, boarding passes, or to chit chat. Not just human error or lack of training?