ramsfan

I worry about them dropping concierge as well. I have only used them when needed, but they have always come through (except once in Frankfurt where I did not get the help I asked for re a tight connection). LHR, YOW and HKG have been especially good.

canadiancow

It definitely sounds like a nice perk, but for every person like you who is sensible, there'd be twenty who say "Oh I'll be there in 5 minutes" when they're not even off the plane yet.

TyCobb

The Captain decides whether the plane holds or goes. For SEs, my experience is that if they know you are somewhere on the way, the Concierge will ask they hold on until scheduled departure time, but the Captain will insist on retracting the bridge and getting underway once that times comes. Obviously, if your baggage somehow makes it on before you do, this will buy you a lot of time and earn you a lot of frowns on boarding.

gglave

True, but it's also much easier for fliers to search for options other than AC than it was 20 years ago. If it's so easy for me to see & choose competitors, AC needs to make it more compelling for me to choose them, particularly for transborder, TPAC and TATL.

Clipper801

You have an "illegal" connection. The MCT is 1h 10m.

A delayed departure from YYZ may cause some passengers to misconnect at YEG, or late for their appointments.

If you add 25m (80m - 45m) to your 5m, you will have 30m and you will have made your connection just fine.

yyzgigi

Have to agree with the MG on this. On Sunday, as just a *S on MP while my plane was in the process of going mechanical I called the priority reservation line and was able to protect myself on the next flight. When my flight was cancelled, I checked in electronically without a problem and was on my way with only a 2.5 hour delay. The next morning I had an email in my inbox apologizing for the flight cancellation with an offer of 10,000 miles or $250 flight coupon.

The concierge certainly would have protected me on the next flight, but would have been waiting a long time for any compensation for AC. Maybe 10%, only after taking the time and effort to complain.

rankourabu

shhhhhhhhh... AC is the best.. rah rah ... four star airline...

Glad it worked out... and that $250 coupon... its actually $250... unlike AC's 10% off, which is more like 3% off after surcharges.

jarusoba

5% off base fare of $5000 would be $250. It's easy to get $5000 base fare, especially when you put more than 1 person in a booking. (unless you're a bottom feeder, of course)

rankourabu

If you were spending $5000 on a ticket out of pocket, chances are - you do not give a rats ... about a 5% off coupon

I guess everyone in this forum is a bottom feeder, because they've at one point or another spent <$5000 on a ticket.

I think you should tell that to the man that drops $1200 from YSB to PIT - clearly a bottom feeder, should be spending $5000 to be worthy.


I guess you'd rather have 5% in AC compensation than $250 straight out.... Even a grade school student could do the math at which one is more valuable to 99.9% of the population.


And $5k for a single ticket, lol, only a dumbass would pay that from their own pocket, I flew 150k miles this year for less than that, made 1K by August, and 70% of my flights were up front.

Even buying miles, a business ticket anywhere in the world would not cost more than $3k, and you still get the services of the magical whimsical concierge.

jarusoba

If you put more than 1 pax on a reservation, $5000 should be very easy. A lot of international latitude fares that allow multiple stops are in the range of $2500-$4000. These are generally decent deals especially if you can score a confirmed upgrade at booking.
You logic is flawed here.

Buying a few cheap tickets doesn't label one a bottom-feeder. ALWAYS buying cheap tickets does.

rankourabu

Sorry, but this is Flyertalk not your country club, buying cheap tickets AND being resourceful and using your brain, and various strategies to fly up front for a fraction of the cost that some higher social class fool paid is what has made this site great for 15 years.

Whether I paid $500 and used my brain to upgrade, and someone else spent $5000 of their silver spoon money, we still get the same concierge

jarusoba

Of course, you're a bottom feeder. A UA one.

You're comparing reward tickets with revenue tickets. Apples and Oranges.

KathrynInCanada

Had forgotten Kelvin was on Airport so looked up some episodes with him.

Here's one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyA9MiHrVuw

The funny thing is that everyone thinks upgrades were better in the 'old days' but in the two I watched Kelvin managed only one upgrade and that was to only one of a group of travelers. The rest remained in the back.

Tedgrrrr

Try now!!!

They held the plane for me from YYZ to PHI when i went to the 25th anniversary last year. It was $100 cheaper to book YYC-YYZ-PHI, than just YYC-YYZ, and so I was dilly dallying at US customs (after YYC flight was delayed by an hour) when I noticed my flight was delayed by 20 min, and I got a call from a concierge telling me that she would meet me on the other side of customs to rush me to the waiting plane

Finally I put my foot down with these people and demanded they offload me from the flight because I was frustrated at the YYC delay, and then went through Canadian customs after grabbing my suitcase.

Worked out well though, AC gave me a free flight from YYZ to ROC the next day for having missed my PHI connection due to the YYC delay

The Lev

Yes - that is what I said in my earlier post. Although interesting that if this was in FRA or MUC, the connection time would have been legal.

Agreed, although I'm not sure what connections there are out of YEG after 11:00 PM and likely few urgent meetings too. Anyway, as I pointed out, allowing me to board would not have delayed the departure.

Note: at no point was my post intended as a complaint about being mistreated by AC - I know the rules and in the end I was put on my "legal" connection. I was simply dealing with the topic at hand which is that in the "old days" there is no way that a SE standing at the gate five minutes before scheduled departure would have been denied boarding and a Concierge would have been willing and able to ensure that.