@Letter, I didn’t want to derail the NYC thread so thought I’d post here.
Changing lanes to the two boutique road is so elusive though; you’re restarting with your previous info already in the Hermes database (with whatever inferences the SA/SM want to make), you’re new and behind everyone else, and there’s nothing to say the the new boutique won’t change it’s policy right when you arrive. Just my two cents, but there doesn’t seem to me to be a way to seriously short circuit the process absent winning the Paris lottery or otherwise catching lightning in a bottle.
The database is only as good as the inputs, and it’s wildly historical (how many second bag offers have there been in the last two months, say may reveal a trend that the overall data might not). The anecdotes are useful but not dispositive in adjusting behavior, again, JMO.