Concierge Confidential by Michael Fazio

profile you’d see, ad nauseum: complaint; complaint; room moved; complaint; room moved; rebate.
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    COMPLAINT KARMA
    When you complain in a hotel, you leave a trail in the system. It’s all logged through programs like Fidelio, Opera, or Hot Sauce. It’s one of the big benefits of the industry-standard software. Staff often go out of their way to put positive comments in people’s portfolios. When people act great, staff want that to trail them to other hotels in the chain.
    The next time that a positive customer checks into a brand hotel in another city, whoever’s checking them in will see the comments. Everyone always looks at the comments; it’s an internal way for employees to warn one another or to encourage rewards for good behavior. When a customer I praised went to another InterContinental Hotel, I am positive that they received some perk upon checking in.
    Being nice is free—and it gets you free things.
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    Ronald did not dispute my denial. I had too good of a reputation. As smart as Lucinda Oskar was, she was also quite stupid, because now I had a bug up my ass just waiting to get back at her.
    The porter came down from her room and handed me her airline tickets, with a note of instructions. Apparently she didn’t take me up on my offer to call me directly. Her instructions were asking for me to reconfirm her tickets. Reconfirming tickets is a very European, very old-fashioned thing to do, one which there’s really no call for anymore.
    Lucinda’s tickets were for the 6:00 P.M. business-class flight back to London, wait-listed for first class. The 6:00 P.M. flight is the most popular flight; everyone wants to get out on that. With people as traveled as Lucinda, their ticket is usually not reflective of what they’re actually doing. They’ve changed it many times, but because they’re super-triple-platinum members they don’t bother them with more tickets. It all comes down to the confirmation number.
    I got on the phone and called British Airways—as she instructed. “Hi,” I said, “this is John, Lucinda Oskar’s assistant. I need to make some changes on her flight. Here’s the confirmation number.”
    I read the guy the number from the ticket. “All right,” he said. “How can I help you, John?”
    â€œShe wants to switch to the ten o’clock flight.”
    â€œWell, she’s wait-listed for first class,” he pointed out.
    â€œYeah, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna go with the ten o’clock flight.”
    â€œI’m sorry, but we don’t have any first-class seats available. We don’t even have any business available.”
    â€œThat’s okay, that’s okay. Coach is fine.”
    â€œWe’ll wait-list her for business class. But there are a lot of people ahead of her for the upgrade, I’m afraid.”
    â€œOh, darn! That’s so unfortunate. All right, it’s probably best for me to just take a confirmed seat for her in coach. She’ll have to hope for the best. She just wants to get home, bless her heart.”
    From the sound of the seat number, she was practically in the back bathroom. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
    Should I? Shouldn’t I? Ah, what the hell. “Yes. She would like a Hindu meal.”
    Now I had to send her ticket back to her room with the porter. I was very careful to make sure that I had clean hands and nothing could be traced back to me. All I did was write “okay” on her note, which she could have interpreted any way she wanted. She must have had a great flight, because I never heard from Lucinda Oskar again.
    But even though Lucinda was a dreadful, horrible person, I didn’t have to deal with her or think about her when she wasn’t at the hotel. She wasn’t some nemesis that haunted me day in and day out, an enemy I couldn’t avoid dealing with no matter how