Is it faster to wait on the phone for 10 minutes, or to google something yourself? Isn’t there an app for this now?

Thanks for your comment. I agree that American Express oversells the service. What I was most disappointed with was trying to use it to locate a place to stay for several months in Durango, Mexico. Even after repeated requests the best I could get was a URL of a Mexican newspaper. This is a far cry from what American Express claims the concierge can do. One of the comments suggested that the US concierge is run very differently than the ones in other countries.

We do have Platinum Dining restaurants that save 1 or 2 tables a night at some of the best restaurants. It’s usually for a 6:30 seating for up to 4 people. No, we can’t change the time and we can’t get a larger table.

You can imagine how quickly that table gets taken by card members. A week in advance is NOT enough time to try to get this table. Be reasonable. Popular restaurants are popular and our one or two tables are surely going to go fast.

Restaurants have reservation rules. Some open their books 30 days in advance, some 60 days – some really, really hot ones open their books once a year. We have no control over their reservation process but we do have to honor it.

Tickets. It’s never a good idea to try to use Concierge for tickets to big events on the sale date (or pre-sale date). You would fare much better to use your own phone and computer to try to get into the ticket sellers (as described in someone’s comment above) rather than sit on hold waiting for us to assist. Tickets do sell out very quickly and while you’re waiting for Concierge to pick up your call, you could have been to the ticket website and been done. I don’t know why the password was edited out in a previous message. It’s not an industry secret and we used to tell callers how to do it all the time. The American Express password is XXXXXXXXXX. [Removed at Circle's request] You ought to register online now as a ticketmaster user so that you don’t have to do it when you’re trying to purchase tickets under a 2 minute timer.

People yelled at us because we could not do the impossible (tickets to Wicked for tomorrow; dining at a top NYC spot tonight; same day delivery for flowers on a big holiday, etc). Some amount of sense and sensibility ought to apply. We are Concierges, not miracle workers. And we surely have no control over the policies and procuedures of the vendors we contact on your behalf.

However, the service has some inherent flaws that never do seem to get addressed and maybe it’s just endemic to call centers, which is where most of the Concierges come from. Call centers are never good employers and employees are treated no differently than if they were production workers making widgets.

Of course that’s going to come back and bite the company on the butt. And it does. People are angry, resentful, unmotivated beyond the what they’re made to do, symptomatic, disrespectful, suspicious and lethargic.

I am so glad to be out of there. It was like a pressure cooker with no release valve. I think the founders of Circles had a wonderful idea but it just spun out of control. And continues to spin, from what I hear.

I tried using them to find me a place to rent for 3 months in Mexico. Concierge tried passing me back and forth to several other departments and finally just sent me a link to a Mexican newspaper. Definitely not the same level of service that they tell about hiring someone to ride out on a motorcycle to the Dead Sea to get some sand to ship back for a member’s son’s school project.

Any 14 yr old knows that ticketmaster or livenation are the major sellers of concert tickets and telecharge is the vendor for broadway shows. So why is it, really, that card members will spend 45 minutes on hold to talk to a Concierge to get Lady Gaga tickets when, by they time they get to us – the venue has sold out? Why couldn’t they have taken that time to go on ticketmaster.com or livenation.com and gotten their own tickets instead of listening to Muzak waiting for us?

And then they’re furious that we couldn’t get them tickets. Wake the heck up! We don’t have a magical way to get them. We call the ticket offices or go online just like you do!! And, nowadays with the sophistication of brokers and their abilities to score tickets and the bazillion people with computers who can manage to go to the sites themselves – venues sell out quite fast. Amazingly fast.

But the whining and gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes when we cannot get them the very sections they wanted ….

Yes, if Amex sponsors an event, we get a smattering of seats throughout the venue for our “pre-sale”. Here’s a secret. Whether it’s a pre-sale or a general sale – the better seats sell out first! Duh! And the Amex pre-sale only has SOME tickets.

And, in the computer age, they sell out in nano-seconds.

You want really good seats? Wait two weeks after the on-sale and then contact a broker; either through your Concierge or on your own.

But don’t blame us when you lack the ability to type in “ticketmaster.com” in your address bar and follow a few simple steps. If you want to wait on hold forever to be taken care of – accept the fact that you’re not only not going to get the seats you want but you may not get seats at all.

No, we aren’t “mystical”. We’re call center employees using the same toos you could use.

Oh, and the password for Amex seats is XXXXXXXXXX. [Removed at the request of Circles PR person.]

We can do wonderful things in helping you with vacation plans or making dining suggestions based on what kind of food/restaurant you’re looking for. We can suggest tours and send you calendars for your destination cities. We can find the best caterer for your event or help you create a memorable party but we dont’ have concert or theater tickets up our sleeves.

Like everyone else on the planet – we have to go to the sources that sell them and we have to do it when the sale starts and not 2 hours before!