If you're shepherding the CEO or a key business contact through Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport when flying Air France-KLM -- or if the idea of navigating through the labyrinthine corridors trying to speak French after a long flight fills you with dread -- you might consider the French national airline's "Personalised services at the airport" to ease your way through.
For €200 (A$244 or so), an Air France staffer will meet and greet you, take care of getting you checked in, speed you through the fast track queues for all the relevant formalities, and send you on your way. They'll sort out your bags and get you to where you need to go for your onward journey if you're arriving.
(Travelling to the USA? American Airlines offers something similar at US airports, which can benefit Qantas passengers: its Five Star Service.)
If you're in transit, the staffer will accompany you to the boarding gate for your connecting flight.
The airline will also organise a short-term hotel room (including shower and breakfast) or transfers into the city by motorbike-taxi, shuttle or chauffeured car, for an additional fee.
If you're in a group, Air France also offers a group-personalised check-in counter, lounge access (and a VIP space within the lounge), a meeting with your flight crew, and (if you're leaving from a 'remote stand' away on the tarmac rather than at a terminal airbridge) limousine service to the cabin door.
And if you're a Flying Blue frequent flyer, the service will net you 400 extra miles.
Tip of the AusBT chapeau to the Frequent Business Traveler blog for the pickup.
Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.
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