[Yahoo] A hotel guest is demanding a bag of potato chips — that are only available on another continent.
Such is the job of a high-end luxury hotel concierge, to whom rich and influential guests (who are never told “no”) turn when they need something done, no matter how crazy or difficult it may be.
“When someone comes up to you and wants something, you don’t ask him, ‘How do I do this?’” says Frank Hernandez, the lead concierge at Halekulani, a five-star luxury hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. “You need to be confident that, ‘I got this; I will take care of this, so don’t worry. I will let you know when it’s here.’ That’s what guests love to hear.”
Frank once helped a concierge at another Hawaii hotel fly in a brand of potato chips that are sold only in Africa for a prominent hotel guest. (Frank describes the guest as a “very, very well known” award-winning film actress.)
“She just really wanted these chips,” remembers Frank, and a bag of Ruffles just wouldn’t do. So the concierge at the Maui hotel where the snack-craving guest was staying set the ball in motion: he called another Les Clefs d’Or concierge in Africa, who picked up a few bags of the chips, boxed them up and put them on a flight to Honolulu. And, no, the chips didn’t travel via FedEx or UPS. Frank says the concierge bought a seat just for the chips. (Just imagine what the passenger seated next to the potato chips must have thought: Is this my seatmate or an in-flight snack?)
It was at this point that the Maui concierge pulled Frank into the Great Chip Airlift. “He called me and said, ‘Frank, I need your help! There’s a bag of chips arriving into Honolulu and I need you to go to the airport and find it,’” Frank says. “So I had to physically go to the airport, speak to the airline, the staff, and the flight’s chief steward. I promised them complimentary room nights and lavish dinners and anything that they needed.” Frank found the chips and booked them on a flight from Honolulu to their final destination in Maui, where they finally arrived for the actress’ snacking pleasure.
The final tally of her big chip airlift: six flights and $12,000 worth of airline tickets. At that price tag, to paraphrase that old ad slogan, bet she couldn’t eat just one.
Actress:
[Optional] If you had unlimited amounts of money, what food would you have flown in to you?
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