Flying from YVR to YQR via YYC Flight from YYC to YQR was delayed 3 hours for a total of 5:30 layover. Called the Concierge about getting on a WS flight. She was already on it. Arriving home 30 minutes earlier than original.

Well done.

Thank you to Carolyn at SYD. She's always helpful and pro-active.

SYD is one of the best Concierge stations by far

wow! I had no idea they would do this for a delay. That's a good piece of information :)

Thanks to Cindy and Iola in Boston
 

I flew home from Boston last night.

I'd had a full day of meetings, so was booked on the last flight of the day (8:20pm) - later than I'd ideally like, but the previous flight (6:25pm) was too early for me to reliably get to.

Shortly after 5pm, I got a call from Iola; my flight was going to be delayed by over an hour, so she had proactively reserved a seat for me on the earlier flight ... and she wanted to know if I could get there in time.

I said I'd try, scrambled, got lucky with traffic, and was just entering the tunnel to Logan when Cindy phoned ... the inbound flight had just arrived, would I still make it? I said I still had to drop my car at Hertz, and warned her that I did have a bag to check. "It will be tight" she said "but we're holding the seat for you".

As soon as I got on the rental car bus I phoned them back to report my status ("he's on the bus now" I could hear being relayed) and was told to rush straight to the counter when I got there.

I did that, and Iola handed me my boarding pass (complete with a weight/balance upgrade :)), Cindy rushed my check bag downstairs, and I made it to the boarding gate just as they were calling zone 5.

Looking back now, I see that my original flight ended up being delayed by almost two hours, and didn't get into YYZ until almost midnight ... but thanks to the amazingly proactive (and completely unprompted) help from Cindy & Iola, I was home & in bed by then.

Thanks to them both; it was an outstanding example of the concierge service providing very real value to an SE.

BOS has AC concierges?! :o

I'm so FOTSG.

Yeah, they were added shortly after my sabotage incident.

Last time we flew out of BOS, first uber driver cancelled on us with no warning 9probably after looking at traffic on the freeway). Until we figured out what had happened and ordered another uber, and given the trafficsituation, we were running a bit late. I called the concierge (unfortunately the gobal number, no longer a local one) to get the BOS concierge involved.

We never saw a concierge but upon arrival they had our boarding passes and lggage tags ready. We had no problem making it.

The BOS local number was never published. They switched to the central number at the same time they added concierges to a bunch of stations, like BOS and SFO.

That's not to say you can't get a local number (caller ID, incoming SMS, etc.), but they never published it for any of the new stations.

I think the theory/plan is that AC will have concierge at every station they fly J to. No idea if they were able to deliver on that plan ... but for sure there are (good) concierge at BOS.

I am not sure that is the plan. There is no Concierge in PHX.

I think a more accurate description would be "concierges at all non-Rouge, non-NA int'l destinations and select airports in NA".

I can't see AC hiring a concierge at many of US airports or Sun destination with 1-2 flights a day (e.g. MSY, BDA etc.)

Concierges at DCA
 

I was surprised to find a concierge waiting to greet me at DCA a couple of weeks ago. I had no issue, and had not requested help (as I didn't even know this tiny airport was staffed by concierges).

There are eight flights a day - 2 to Montreal, 2 to Ottawa, and 4 to Toronto. J is only offered on 5 of those, sadly none to YOW.

Still, I was pleased to be greeted by a very friendly concierge.

Sounds reasonable.

Probably should add "non-ML" destinations.

AFAIK, places like MSY offer J but are not ML.

Yeah, and then there is Saskatchewan.

A big THANKS to the amazing concierge team in YVR today, who made sure I made a very tight connection with time to spare! AC8 was delayed leaving HKG, leaving me with only 35 minutes to spare before my flight to YUL.

Thankfully someone was here to meet me at the aircraft, rush me in a cart to customs, escort me in front of transfer security and all the way to the gate.

Only 13 minutes between deplaning AC8 and boarding AC306. ^

It's moments like these when I remember why I keep requalifying for SE. :cool:

Huge thanks to YTZ concierge.

She proactively called me at 6:45am to inform me of a slight delay on my 815am. Said my 3 onward connnections were still fine, but she had a bad feeling because inbound had not yet departed.
(edit: inbound from yul-ytz ended up with 2h30m mechanical delay!)

Offered to route thru Pearson. Declined as I need YTZ for EYW plus i was already in an AC funded limo towards YTZ. GPS showed 707am arrival. Rush hour traffic beginning.

Told concierge I had an ever so slight chance of making the 715 flight. She printed a confirmed boarding pass and said I had till 7:08am for boarding door cutoff. My car arrived at YTZ drop off point at 7:04am.

Elevator, moving walkway, 4 flights of stairs later, and at 7:08am I made it to the top of escalator pre secutity. Concierge was there with new BP and walkie talkie. Escort past a big line up at security. Made the flight which shows it pushed early at 710am.

As I read this, I was picturing an AC commercial touting the benefits of status, along with "Mission: Impossible" music. :p

(just swap out the limo with a helicopter and we have a commercial!)

YYC Concierge Great service
 

I have consistently received great service and help from the YYC Concierges. It makes requalification as a Super Elite worthwhile. Today Chris helped with a baggage issue and proactively rebooked on an earlier flight to reduce chance of delay causing misconnect. Anna and Claude both have been very helpful lately too.
Baggage services... That's another matter.

Replace "Baggage services" with "YYC".

Glad to know about what the concierge team can do at YYC.

My baggage problems have all been with YYZ (bags sat in YYZ for six days) and the delayed baggage department. Still waiting for expenses (low amount) from an early October flight. Receipts sent multiple ways in early November. Still no cheque, the last email in early December said 1 to 3 weeks. No compensation offered just reimbursement for toiletries and clothing needed... long story of many problems and that was with Concierge and Executive Office assistance.
Horrible service for an SE in J to Asia.

huge thanks to YYZ Concierge
 

Huge thanks to Anthony and YYZ Concierge iffice. My YYC-YYZ flight was delayed and we arrived at gate 21:47 after our connection to DEL departure time. The DEL departure time was changed to 22:00 and we were met by Anthony had a good run through domestic, got a ride in the BMW to international and got to DEL gate a couple minutes before departure. Thanks Anthony! Amazingly, our bags made it to DEL too with that less than 15 min connection.

^^^^^
High praise and thanks to my Concierge Colleagues at my regular pit stops : AMS/FCO/MAD/MUC/MXP.

That's a lot of TATLs.

Why not bid for some TPACs? (Unless the concierges there are no good lol)

Thank you to Mario in YUL for greeting us at the plane door with boarding passes for an earlier connection, and for hustling us through the airport, and for persuading somebody to open a door for a shortcut!

The best part of all this was that my wife was travelling with me to witness this service. (The worst part is that now she thinks this happens to me all the time.)

Thanks to the YYZ concierge tonight for standing up to less than enthusiastic gate agents.

5min before boarding AC33, a seat opened up for my return next week so that I could fly the same route that my wife and son had ticketed.

Unfortunately Aeroplan couldn't reissue my ticket since I was checked in and about to board AC33 long haul. Gate agents refused to offload and recheck me a few minutes later since boarding was imminent. They DID dial up a friendly concierge...

while on the call:

Gate agent "you may lose your seat from yvr-syd"... "the agents in YVR are going to take it out from under you, you'll end up in economy."

Concierge: "I heard that, don't worry, I have seat XX on hold for you till we finish the call just in case".

Gate agent's face when I told him this: PRICELESS.

Yeah, the concierge vs. gate agent battles are "fun".

Or at least... dramatic.

I had 4 instances in 2017 (that I can recall) where I was offloaded from a flight without my knowledge or consent. Two were fixed by the gate agent (one was easy - downgrade a non-rev; the other required downgrading a revenue passenger). The one where I had to get the concierge involved had a very clearly unfriendly back and forth between the GA and the concierge. The concierge was completely on my side. The GA wants to get the flight out, and the concierge wants to help the SE.

In my case, the concierge wanted to fix a problem that someone at AC created. In your case, I'm actually a little surprised the concierge would have done anything to make the GA's life that much harder for what was clearly a voluntary change. But I'm happy it worked out for you.

In my experience, they do things like this all the time. What's not to love?
Happy New Years, SFO Concierge team. I hope I won't have to rely on you as much as I did in 2017, but I know you'll be there if I need you!

Concierge team at YUL
 

Haven't had to use the concierge service much over the years (lucky me in a way!), but my last two AC871's (CDG-YUL) were delayed by several hours for various reasons. Both times, the Concierge team at YUL was very pro-active in taking care of my onward connection to YQB, nicely waiting for me at the gate with a BP on the next flight home. Is it just me, or are we seeing an improvement in Concierge service as of late? Anyways, just wanted to say thanks to the YUL team!

I've actually noticed a marked improvement since around the time they introduced AQD.

Aeroplan tickets getting rebooked onto Alaska during IRROPS (delay, not cancellation), etc.

I've even seen them waive SDC fees a lot more easily (i.e. I didn't ask because I was willing to pay) lately.

I've had exceptional service from the AC Concierge teams in YVR, HKG, NRT, HND, LAX, BNE, TPE, YYZ, SFO, LHR and FRA over the past number of years.

These teams have been pro-active during IROPS, and/or provided escort to APEC, Nexus or other Fast Track lanes, and/or helped resolve issues with BPs or *A partner PNRs on AC tickets, as well as helped with a hotel booking and arranged for car service, among other things.

In recent months, some YYZ concierges helped to make sure I got out of YYZ before storms so I would not miss my onward connections. The LAX team helped with issues on a ticket and connections. SFO dazzled me last year by pulling my carry on and running with me to make my flight to YYZ.

The most recent TPE trip had the YVR and TPE teams making sure that I and others made our connections due to the IROPS mess that YYZ weather caused along with the delays on AC 11 and 12. This weekend, the inbound AC 11 was delayed due to strong headwinds, arriving in TPE quite late and with pax deplaning after our AC 12 scheduled departure time. The concierges kept us informed of the delays and advised that extra grooming teams were brought in to speed up turnaround and she also informed us that she had sent messages to YVR prior to our departure.

On arrival in YVR, we were met by a concierge who advised that our various onward flights were cancelled, and had new BPs for us. Then we were whisked by "chariot" to Nexus, and then to the C Security.

I have sent personal thank you messages to these teams, but I think it is equally important to thank them here.

While we may spend the money and earn the status that allows us the concierge service, it is the creativity and problem-solving skills of some of the concierges that can really make a difference in travel, especially when one is on the other side of the planet.

Thanks Denise, concierge at YVR. YVR-TPE-YYZ last week, had a foot issue so asked for assistance and she had a cart waiting. I chose not to follow FOTSG @yyznomad past advice about going out and going back in using the normal security line and went with the connection line which was a gong show - 50 people ahead of me and one x-ray line. Eventually they opened another line. I got picked for extra security. Then my Kavalan single malt from duty free set off the alarm on the spectrometer or whatever it is they use. So they xrayed all my stuff twice, swabbed all my electronics twice, sent me for a pat down again - and decided they were not going to let the bottle thru. The concierge came looking for me and helped pack the bottle in my carryon which she checked in baggage and then brought the bag receipt to the boarding gate. Awesome.
YVR needs to do something about that connection line. Last time my liquor also set off the alarm and some supervisor came over, recalibrated and all was good.

tsk-tsk.

Never not-listen to the FOTSG advice of yyznomad.

Yes off course. Sometimes we get these crazy ideas in our heads like trying to check things out ourselves :-)

Shout out the the Concierges at YYZ . Who got my and family protected on the next flight after 1627 canceled 02/10. They also helped work with customer care to get refund quickly on my Hotel . When the flight canceled and hundreds rushed to the counter. I just stepped back and called them. Super service always. I have been SEfor 12yrs and bispite all yelling here. I think it’s very good program for what it is.

Thank you to Cindy, BOS concierge, for an amazing job last night. BOS was a sh*t-show last night with rain and sleet and an A/C going mechanical (extraordinary story - the same a/c had the same issue at BOS the previous night, cancelled, patched up my maintenance yesterday morning and continued to fly, then the problem re-occurred but because it was already noted in the log, apparently they couldn't apply the same patch-job a second time. Why would AC send a questionable a/c as the last inbound of the night?). Cindy did a great, very subtle job of getting all 5 SEs offloaded from the (at that time) delayed flight, moved over to the one flight that was likely to operate, and getting us all home without infuriating the dozens of other pax milling about who were not so lucky. THANKS Cindy!

GRU concierges
 

The Concierge team in GRU are the best .....Christina, Fabriola, Racia. Each is so professional and have helped me so many times. I just want to put in a good word for this team.

100k