I have more constructive advice for you. I would suggest to your friend that she establish a relationship with a SA at a store in a city to which she can travel a few times per year. Not knowing where she is or her circumstances I can't make a more specific suggestion. If she's in Europe perhaps she can make one of the Paris stores her home store. She can always have her SA send her scarves etc. if she chooses the right location.
I liked shopping in Paris more than my local store so I essentially made PARIS my home store. I save my purchases for my visits which average twice per year. Believe me, I know what it's like to not have a good store close by. That's why I worked out a solution. Don't assume everyone is being a snob or simply rail against the circumstances. Find a solution.
Waiting in that line seems to me to be a poor solution with low odds of success.
Precisely!!! I currently live in a city with no H stores. The nearest ones in the country are an hour's flight away but their snobbiness is unrivaled. I decided it was too much to bear and I wouldn't stand for it despite having been a customer for over 20 years when I moved here. So I started going to a neighboring country (Singapore) where it is considered one of the most difficult places in the world to get a bag offer. I went there for other reasons a few times per year anyway so it was a natural choice. I decided that Hong Kong, Jakarta or any city in Japan would be my back ups if I failed to find someone I connected with.
I decided to replace a watch strap and buy a couple of twillies to test the waters. I had a very professional, and polite SA. She was a bit cool but I thought it could work. She gave me her card and a few months later (I was still in the US when I started developing my relationship--I needed to lay the groundwork before my permanent move), I called her and told her what I was looking for and that I am flying in. She welcomed us again, more warmly this time and as I shopped and we chatted she asked me about which bags I have and which ones I would like....it was very natural.
Four or five years later I can say she is not only a great SA but a warm and gregarious friend who texts me about non H related things on a nearly daily basis usually for a laugh. She told me that for the store's purposes I am considered a local, and they have held things for me for a month with no deposit and no issue as long as I confirm I want the item and I will go pick it up.
We keep a rolling list of things I want on a phone app, she gathers some things and when she has a bag that I want she contacts me and offers me the bag first knowing full well that I will buy some of the other things she sets aside. It works well and I love every employee in that store. I always send the store something when I am there and they joke with me that it is like a party when I'm in town and that they should have a private room in the store so I can sleep there during my visits.
So no, I will not stand in a line for hours, not for a bag or anything else short of a necessary organ for a family member. When the staff knows you are interested in the brand but also interested in them as human beings and are respectful of their time they will go the distance for you, and that is true of H or any other store. If these people are treated as no more than just the gatekeepers to the K/B/C they will feel it--it is palpable. My experiences at H are a joy. I look forward to my time with these lovely people and to my new acquisitions. I simply refuse to line up before dawn (middle of the night these days), become irate over the injustice of the line cutting, get an appointment whose time is not set but malleable, to then go in for a crapshoot after whittling away my beauty sleep and possibly most of the day, all for the privilege of spending thousands of euros of my hard earned money! No, those conditions would not see a single euro from me let alone tens of thousands of euros.
As a business person, based on cold hard facts, I can see how H doesn't feel the need to lift a finger as they probably feel that the customer experience begins after one walks through the door. My sense of justice on the other hand would like to see H give these line cutters and shifty sorts their just desserts. All that said, while it is not for me, if someone's desire is such that they will endure ANYTHING to get the bags and nothing else, then I extend my sincerest wishes for the best of luck and a hope that they remain safe, but when people say they have no choice--I disagree completely.
Just like we Q for our fave band concert tickets in the old days 
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