I returned from Japan and it is much clearer for me now. Apparently, American Express uses International SOS to liaise with the shop person by email. The shop person gave me a feedback that it’s quite difficult to correspond by emails, as he doesn’t have email address and only his manager does. So this explains, why there was a delay of days for each correspondence attempt.
When I asked him on how Visa contacted them, he said by way of phone and he liked it that way. It’s faster and easier for him to reply. I got most of ordered stuff including the last minutes one. Visa Infinite concierge did slip on one item that has to be pre-ordered. I ended buying on the street shop and cost me about twice more than if I were to pre-ordered from the store.
So what’s the next challenge? My company is trying to organize a conference for our colleagues all over the world. I was torn if I should contact both Amex and Visa concierge to solicit for proposal. I was hoping that they can leverage on their existing partnership with hotels in 2 Asian countries.
I went ahead with VICC (Visa Infinite Concierge) and they managed to secured me at least 8 proposals. They mentioned that they didn’t have any partnership with hotels, yet they find some good hotels and relay my requirements. Within a week, I got almost all but a couple of proposals. Thumbs up! Good work.
Amex was not contacted as I don’t want hotel to be contacted twice and also to waste any resource on either side. I wonder if Amex concierge would perform the same.
Despite so, Amex has its own travel agency which is quite reputable globally. I need to make changes to my relatives flight on tickets that were not bought from them. They did helped me and spared me from long hold time by Singapore Airlines. In peak season, one can be on hold for more than 30 minutes and not connected to any agents (call can be disconnected after ‘exceeding waiting time’).
Practical Advise:
- Knows what services are offered by your concierge. There could be more than one concierge from your card
- Leverage on each concierge stregth to effectively get assistance from it.
- Knows when to back down and switch over the another concierge
- Do not waste people’s time and efforts by getting multiple concierge doing the same thing.
Tags: American Express, Concierge, Infinite, service, Visa
