There are certain features of luxury hotels that get completely lost on me. For example, I don’t really value a porter service that results in me sitting in my room waiting 20 minutes for my bag after I’ve checked in. I rarely use overpriced minibars. And I’ve never really understood why I would want a butler in my hotel room.

But I’ve really come to appreciate the knowledgeable and ever-helpful concierges, particularly when visiting a country for the first time or where I don’t know the local language.

What can hotel concierges do?

I’ve used hotel concierges to get help with all sorts of things. They can, of course, do simple tasks like booking taxis, booking train tickets, providing restaurant recommendations, lending umbrellas or providing bottles of water. But they can also assist with more complex things like booking tours.

I recently enlisted the help of the Intercontinental concierge in Almaty to arrange a driver and vehicle to take our group on a 600km road trip to Charyn Canyon and Kolsai Lake. It was a spectacular day out and I could not have organised this myself.

While in Almaty, I was also having trouble registering for the Yandex App (the Kazakh equivalent of Uber). The eSIM I was using didn’t provide me with a local phone number, so I couldn’t complete the registration process. The concierge immediately offered me a local SIM card at no charge, and even helped me to set it up. This was much appreciated as there were several extra steps involved and the instructions were in Russian.

At times, I’ve even asked hotel concierges to teach me a few phrases in the local language. I’ve never found a concierge that wasn’t happy to help. In fact, they are often proud to share their native language and pleased to see someone taking an interest.

By contrast, I personally find credit card concierges to provide somewhat limited value (admittedly, I don’t have an Amex Centurion card). When it comes to planning travel, they just don’t often have the main advantage of hotel concierges: local knowledge.

Do you use hotel concierges?

I’ll definitely be using hotel concierges more in the future. In my view, this is one complimentary hotel service that’s totally worth taking advantage of.

Do you agree? Let us know in the comments!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.