Patek Philippe

Our member S F did seem to suggest that his encounter was in a smaller city, so considering Tokyo is the largest city in Japan, it probably happened in a different city thank Tokyo. Nevertheless, I was surprised to read S F's experience.

Sadly... Sometimes though, that's a really long walk! And sometimes you don't have a choice. For instance, if I don't want to fly next to people who board airplanes coming from the gym still in their tank top and the airline won't make a rule... I don't have a lot of options. Since few other airlines run a similar route sometimes. I suppose I could just not travel. But the flight attendant reseated me. That inconsiderate fella got my aisle seat with nobody seated next to him in the middle seat (he had the middle seat assigned to him). And I got stuck into a middle seat. Airlines are nearly a monopoly, especially on infrequent routes. Kind of hard to vote with your feet. But maybe just travel less is the "voting" solution in this case. And it's important to vote, but also to tell the establishment why you're leaving.  They may want to know!

I fly business class when I can, upgrade if I can, or don't go. Mostly for the last 3 years I haven't gone. Or you can fly a puddle-jumper where "every seat is an aisle seat, every seat is a window seat, every seat is first class" but those flights have their drawbacks too. Even flying private can't escape without some issues: headroom, baggage handling (not), meal service, etc



Narrow aisles, bathroom access (next to nil)

Oh! I forgot the flying private alternative. I'm unfortunately not in the income bracket that allows me to charter a plane. And all my money goes to watches, clocks, fine food and wine, and other "necessities." Thus, necessitating me to save money on flights. So I mostly fly coach. Other family members are up in front in First or Business, but I'm almost always sitting in the back in Coach. And I think you're right. The airlines don't care. The employee taking the complaint doesn't care. The employee reading the complaint doesn't see it as a high priority. And airline management knows I'm making an empty threat since they know I have very few alternatives. I wasn't born during the golden age of flying. So I haven't seen the whole range of airline service from when it was good to when it became bad.

My first boss paid $25k per year for an AA pass that would let him fly anywhere American went, any time, First Class. It might have been because we had a fair number of Frequent Fliers in our company. I had to buy my own tickets (company later reimbursed) & managed to rack up 2.5M miles on AA.

Once I was on a flight AA from London Heathrow to LA and they paged me in the aircraft, saying “we have a seat in First, will you accept it?” “Why, yes I will” I said. The guy I was traveling with had to stay in Business (ok by me).

I asked “is it basically the same?”

The attendant said, “ yes, except for the smoked salmon and caviar with iced vodka, the filet, the cognac and the neck, shoulder and scalp massage … and the larger seat, and lamb’s wool seat covers, and the slippers, it’s the same.”

A bit like Monty Python’s “what did the Romans ever do for us?”

And occasionally a call would come, in advance, saying “your flight might be delayed, can I run through the options we have for you, and have you select your preferred alternative flight and on which other airline you would like us to book your seat?”

I’m not making this up.

Mike

That was a good deal! $250K and unlimited First Class flights with AA! What a good deal!

Just few days after my post

But it's probably not the display manufacturer, it was probably just damaged while putting things in and out of the window. Maybe someone's sleeve caught the logo and broke off a piece of it while pulling something out of the display case.

A lot of the romance of watch collecting seems to have evaporated - especially over the last few years.

That picture is an analogy as to how I feel about “Modern” Patek Philippe. I have bought some of the new stuff and have always sold it on.
I suppose Thierry is doing A-Ok, just not by me.

Who knows, we'd probably like the old-world sales techniques. We all like old-world watches. Why not old-world sales techniques to buy those watches.

That is the craziest stretch I have heard in a long time.  Let’s pull back to reality.

This post was definitely not meant to target this specific jeweler, although I realized after the fact that I did uniquely identify the jeweler by mentioning the geography and with the photo. The post also does not target any specific watch brand, as what happened could've happened to any watch brand. Thank you again Tahoeblue for sharing your thoughts. It's definitely a very valid perspective.

When you go to your bodega there’s stuff flying all over and no one seemed to care because you need to buy your small stuff and move on, the exact thing is here you need them anyways and you’ll buy anyways even if the store is run down!!!

In general we lost when there’s a customer power there will always be better service and nicer stores, with great customer service, when stores has the power they feel entitled to not give you service, not to handle the watch with gloves, not to treat you well in airport, not to treat you well in restaurants!

But I think the real answer is when they treat you like garbage, treat them back the same way till they feel it

I don't think I could treat someone like garbage even if I wanted to. But it's sad that the traditional experience isn't there anymore when we buy traditional products.

this is my first post here so I wanted to say hello and say how much I appreciate the insight shared on this forum... In regards to the falling standard, I am relatively young (mid thirties) and I must say that this is generally the case everywhere and I think this starts with people no longer caring for their profession (lack of self respect too) but I do feel like Japan is quite different (at least in my limited experience), especially in the high end sector for restaurants, clothes and other luxury items such as watches. Also, when I recently visited the Patek Salon in Geneva I had an amazing visit with an in-depth over two hour watch talk with one of the SAs - truly brilliant experience and I was really glad as I was somewhat prepared to be disappointed given my experiences with watch SAs all over the world.

Indeed!  Things can be less promising.  But all we can do is hope for the best.  Or we can all move to Japan!