I enjoy going downstairs to their office, much better than being upstairs
Helenia is wonderful. All of the concierges in that office are great. I had Marc-Antoine email me when in Montreal getting me on an earlier flight back so I can get to EZE in plenty of time

Susan a long-time concierge in LAX, helped us get home yesterday after our United flight from KOA was two hours late. She even took pictures of our bags to confirm they were ours before she retagged them to fly on AC rather than UA.

These concierges are a benefit you do not realize until you fully understand what they can do. So nice to have this support :)

ICN concierge
 

air Canada website lists ICN as one of the airports that provides concierge services. anyone have any experiences to share? will I be able to spot them easily at check in?

Well, my second concierge encounter has been ... mediocre. Was at SE checkin when concierge called to inform me I was going to misconnect on YVR-YYZ-MUC due to delay on first leg (I already knew that). They wanted to switch us to YVR-FRA-MUC, terrible plan as there was neither J nor PE available and we had confirmed eUp to J on original TATL (Lat award booking). Direct LH YVR-MUC also no good (see eUp). I suggested YVR-YYZ-FRA-MUC, which had J space potential, was told no problem and because J was confirmed we'd get J again. (That didn't sound right, but I'll take it!)

Well in the process of off loading us from checked in itinerary something got screwed up. Was told I was good to check in, so hung up with concierge desk, but then checkin agent couldn't complete checkin. Ticket was broken enough that it took 90+ minutes for them to sort it out. All while we're pre-security. New boarding passes show now Y for whole flight and we're waitlisted at 4+5 for 3 available seats and PY is also looking grim. :(

Guess this'll be my first long haul Y in a decade.

Edit: Or maybe not. After subsequently noticing an email from early in the process showing confirmed J, I called back and pushed harder. 45 minutes later, confirmed J!

I asked for checkin to be complete as the app was very buggy and I am in Europe. Apparently they cannot check you in due to Covid requirements. Not sure how the Covid info affects checkin since this is a return leg and everything incl vaccine, passport, etc is already in the system from the outbound. There is literally nothing to verify as far as I know. Anyway, the app seemed to work a few hours later despite many error messages and checkin was complete.
I wanted to checkin at T-24 since I am waitlisted for a upg which will be processed at gate and I believe time of checkin is the tie breaker if everything else is the same.

Read this experience like a horror film .. with a sudden surprise happy end result!

For the most part, i find that concierges will come through even if it looks like they won't.
Hopefully I didn't jinx it for anyone now that I've said this. :p

CATSA decided to take my child's teddy bear away from her on our recent family trip. The bear is a stuffed bear and whoever was running the scanner decided that this qualified under the "no granular substances over 355ml" rule. Absolutely insane to watch multiple CATSA employees/contractors try to cover for eachother while my 7 year old bawled her eyes out and kept screaming "teddyyy nooooo".

The "supervisor" just kept saying "this is more than a pop can" and I kept saying a) what's inside doesn't even qualify under this obscurely published rule and b) you've taken no measurement. It's not obvious to me and you aren't measuring it. You're just playing a guessing game. He also said (authoritatively) "looks, it's blue on the scanner" (looked more shady/grey to me, I snapped a pic). I asked to see the policy in writing and was told several times it's "classified" or "non public field manual. we can't show you anything in writing".

I stayed calm, I didn't want to show my kids it's ok to throw a tantrum, but I also didn't want them to see me just give up one of their lifelong possessions to some jerk with a poorly sewn on badge/logo.

One of the concierges was walking by and I asked my wife to flag them down. They came by and took the bear, somewhat against CATSA's protests (they made her exist to landside with it... ridiculous) and the MLL proceeded to send us pictures of the bear during the week as it learned the ropes and earned it's wings.

Unnecessary situation with CATSA, amazing help from the concierge going above and beyond for a little girl.

Personally, I would call this "human", rather than above and beyond. Hopefully they (the concierge) stay on for a very long time. But what a ridiculous situation.

Edit: how did the bear get to the MLL?

Had a really great experience at SYD after arriving from YVR. Concierge met me at the gate to walk me (a significant way) to customs. Once there she was going to show me how to use the machine (haha). Very nice of her.

Turns out, none of the machines were working and, consequently, the customs line was massive. No problem. She walks me right to the front of it and I am through in under a minute. Was amazing.

On the return, she comes and finds me in the plaza premium (yuck) lounge to chat and wish me a nice trip home. There is no AC lounge at SYD.

All in all, incredible service.

I hope you wrote in to commend the concierges for taking care of this. Solid work.

The gang in SYD is amazing, all 3 of them (plus Jonathan). Glad they took care of you. AC does not have a lounge but you can use both the ANZ and SQ lounges without issue.

That said, AC has been given the gates on the other side of the terminal, post COVID for whatever reason, so it is a 10 minute walk from those lounges to the gates.

The ANZ lounge is very nice, r (somewhat) ecently renovated and a good spot to hang out before the flight.

Just SMH. I always try to have something nice to say about CATSA... but they make that a difficult task. Glad it worked out for your family. Kudos to the concierges.

Is there a concierge office at YYZ US check-in? Or is it just the one office down at the end at domestic priority?

I do not believe any airport has more than one concierge office.