DrunkCargo

This is what I was explicitly told by an YYZ MLL agent when I asked to speak to a concierge on an International J fare. She then instructed me to look on the back of my SE card to call the concierge.

Just a note that apparently ac.com is not accurate. Both links below are incorrect, according to this agent (and many others, including concierges). This agent was the first to specifically say "Ben Smith recently changed the concierge service."

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelin...concierge.html

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelin...t_intexec.html

The smallest state

Problem is................AC employees make it up as they go along. Seriously. Poor management has led to a two pronged dragon of
a/ conflicting messages from corporate
b/ inability of management to do anything if bad info is passed to the guest.

Long story short.........if you are SE then you get the baseline of customer assistance that was expected and delivered in the 1970's. Facts, honest answers and people actually providing a service to the customer.

If you are NOT a SE. Forget it. You are on your own with AC. The whole experience is reduced to the level of a corrupt small town sheriff in the deep south of the US. The rules are what ever the employee says they are. There is no argument, no appeal, no common sense or no recourse.

This is AC 2016......now the reality is this is Air Greyhound not Air Canada. However Greyhound at least has working computer systems, competent employees and you get what you pay for.

I have flown Air Koryo from Beijing to Pyongyang. AC is worse.

acysb87

If you don't like the 1st answer, try again.
If you don't like the 2nd answer,try again
If you don't like the 3rd answer,try again
If..........

D404

This too, under Am I Eligible: https://beta.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco...-services.html

IANAL, but sounds like straight up false advertising. Classy.

Diabeetus

What does IANAL stand for?

D404

I Am Not A Lawyer

Maybe it's a less common acronym than I think.

24left

"I am not a lawyer"

ridefar

Not that I was flying in the 70s, but when I do fly international J/F these days (always always reward tickets) I get as good or better IRROPS service with most airlines as I do as an SE on AC. Now the nice thing is that as an SE, I get very good/great IRROPS service no matter what class of fare I am on, but I am not terribly confident that I would be as well taken care of if I was no status AC J. That is a shame.

Wings100

Totally agree with this...Service from Concierges is good to inconsistent but SE assures some higher level of service whether at the gate, over the phone and occasionally also from a Concierge...

canadiancow

I'll admit my IRROPS experience with other airlines is pretty minimal, but AA did not treat me well in paid domestic F (I gave them a two year hiatus for that), and NH (when booked in F) basically told me "you're an award ticket... GFY" until a concierge made things happen. Though that issue was caused by AC, so I expected AC to fix it.

Hopefully I never find out how good or bad other airlines are in J/F with IRROPS

ffsim

As a non-SE who flies paid international J, the inability to reach a concierge is something I've brought up previously on this forum. I've been fortunate enough to never need their services, but if I did, I have little confidence that I'd actually be able to reach one. If BS did indeed make a change to the concierge eligibility, then it would be nice if the changes were reflected somewhere in writing. Otherwise, yes, it screams "false advertising" to me.

yulred

Around 6-8 weeks ago, saw it play out with two J connecting pax arriving into YYZ on a TPAC delayed by IRROPs. The SE was rebooked in J, met at the gate, and escorted by a concierge; the other J pax was left on their own and ended up connecting in Y.

I remember being surprised, since I thought I had had access to concierges on previous J trips, but simply made a mental note for the future and let it pass.

It's not a common service across airlines. I'm used to getting better service from the likes of 9W when travelling in J, but LX, AI, UA, TK etc don't offer anything remotely concierge-esque. Perhaps AC is making it like UA GS by limiting the perk and phasing out excess positions through attrition?

kwflyer

Sounds like Since so many intl j fliers had trouble accessing the conceriges, Ben decided to just make it official, and deny you what you barely had before. I can see the next headline for the altitude report already: "The peekaboo game is over!"

Or, he didn't want to have to pay another loonie for having conceriges multitask between two customer segments.

yvr76

Probably not feasible for the concierge to deal with 20 misconnecting pax, so understandable that it's only SE. They should just remove this as a benefit for international pax and be done with it.

FlyerGoldII

So unless all web sites are wrong, this beta web site also states that international business class passengers are eligible for concierge service.


Altitude Super Elite 100K members and International Business Class passengers are entitled to concierge services in 42 airports around the world from more than 200 carefully selected concierge agents. They’re sensitive to cultural diversity and are all specially trained in guest management, hospitality, and building customer relationships.