Terms of use

These terms of use are an agreement between you and the New York City Association of Hotel Concierges, Ltd., a New York not-for-profit corporation (“NYCAHC”, “the association”, “we” or “us”). They apply to this website and everything reached from it: the public pages, the online application, the pages for letter writers, the member portal, the corporate portal and the Board workspace (together, “the site”), and to the emails the site sends.

By using the site you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the site. Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal information, and our accessibility statement explains how we make the site usable for everyone.

Membership of the association is governed by its bylaws, by the Ethics and Professional Standards that every member signs and by the decisions of the Board of Directors. They set who may join, the membership categories, dues, voting and discipline. These terms do not change them. If these terms and the bylaws or the standards ever disagree on a membership matter, the bylaws and the standards prevail.

Creating an account or starting an application does not make you a member. Every candidate is approved by the Board of Directors after the application is reviewed, and candidates' names are shared with the membership for comments, as the bylaws provide.

As its bylaws provide, the association does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religious affiliation, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender or age, and it follows the federal, New York State and New York City laws against discrimination. The age and experience each membership category asks for come from the bylaws and the association's membership rules.

The association creates accounts: the Board invites members and corporate representatives, a corporate member's primary contact may add its second representative, and applicants receive a sign-in when they start an application. There is no open sign-up. You can sign in with a password or with a single-use link sent to your email, and you can add two-step verification with an authenticator app; an account with two-step verification signs in with its password and a code, not with a link.

• Use your own account only, and keep your password, sign-in links and codes to yourself.
• On a shared computer, such as a Concierge desk, leave “Keep me signed in on this device” off and always sign out when you finish: a sign-in with an emailed link stays signed in for up to three days unless you sign out.
• Keep your email address current: it is how you sign in and how we reach you.
• Tell us right away at contact@nycahc.org if you think someone else has used your account.

You are responsible for what is done through your account, except what website support does there while helping you, which is recorded (see the privacy policy). The Board may require two-step verification for Board positions, and we may pause an account to protect the site or the people who use it. When we do, we tell you why unless that would put the site or others at risk.

A corporate member has up to two representatives. The company is responsible for how its representatives use the site, and its primary contact manages the team.

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, apply or subscribe to our emails. Each membership category also has its own requirements under the bylaws; for example, Full members are at least 21.

If you apply, the information and documents you give must be true, complete and your own. The Board may ask for more information and decides every application under the bylaws. Processing may take up to three months.

Letters of recommendation and letters from hotels are confidential to the Board. Website support may open one only when that is needed to fix a technical problem, and each time it opens an application is recorded. Applicants see whether a letter has arrived, not what it says, unless they upload their hotel's letter themselves. If you are asked to write a letter, write only what you know to be true, and use the link you received only for the application it was sent for.

Corporate applications are reviewed by the Board and may be shared with the membership for comments before a decision. Payment is requested only after the Board approves the application.

Some steps ask you to sign by typing your full name and ticking a box, for example when you sign the Ethics and Professional Standards with your application or certify them each year. You agree that this electronic signature binds you in the same way as a handwritten one, and that the association may keep these records in electronic form. The full text is on the page where you sign, chapter by chapter, for you to read before you sign.

With each signature we record the version of the text and a fingerprint of it, the time, your internet address and your browser, so the association can show what was signed and when. The standards can be downloaded as a PDF at any time, you can ask us for the record of your signature, and if you cannot sign online, write to membership@nycahc.org and we will find another way.

The members' areas hold information that members share with the association and with each other in trust: the member directory and contact details, your replies and attendance, the association's documents, announcements, the corporate member directory and everything else behind the sign-in.

• Use it only for the association's purposes and for professional contact between members.
• Do not copy, export, scrape or pass it on to anyone outside the association.
• Do not use it for marketing, sales or mass email, and do not add members to a mailing list without their consent.
• Respect each member's directory choices: what a member keeps hidden is not for sharing.

Corporate members reach members through the channels the association offers: their approved listing, events they host with the Board's approval, presentations at meetings and the association's own emails.

• Reply to an invitation by the deadline shown if you intend to attend, and change your reply if your plans change. The Ethics and Professional Standards note that members who consistently reply yet do not attend may face disciplinary action.
• When a seat opens from the waitlist, confirm it within the time shown, or it goes to the next person.
• Your member pass is personal and not to be shared. Its code changes every day, so a screenshot stops working the next morning.
• Check-ins are recorded, with whether the pass or a photo ID was shown, and count toward the meetings the standards ask members to attend each year.
• Events hosted by corporate members or held at other venues are also subject to the host's and the venue's own rules.

Photographs may be taken at association events and shared in albums for members. An album becomes public only when the Board publishes it. If you would rather not appear in a photo, please tell the Social Director at social@nycahc.org.

The Board of Directors sets the association's dues and fees. The amounts that apply to you are shown in the portal and on each invoice.

• Invoices are issued through QuickBooks Online, the association's accounting system. You pay on Intuit's secure payment page by card or bank transfer where offered, or by check. The site never sees or stores card or bank details.
• Due dates and reminders are shown on your invoice and in the portal. Under the bylaws, members in good standing whose dues for the year are paid in full may attend and vote at meetings.
• Membership is renewed each year by paying that year's dues or fee; a corporate membership is renewed at the discretion of the Board. Nothing renews or charges you automatically.

NYCAHC is exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions, gifts, dues and other payments to NYCAHC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Dues paid by a business may be deductible as a business expense; please ask your tax adviser. Gifts to the NYCAHC Charitable Fund, Inc., a separate 501(c)(3) organization, are governed by the Fund's own rules.

You keep ownership of what you add to the site: your profile and photo, application documents, event proposals and covers, corporate listings and logos, job postings, comments, feedback and anything else you write or upload.

You give the association a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store, copy, display, adapt (for example resize, crop or convert images) and share that content as needed to run the association and the site, within your choices (such as your directory settings) and as the Board approves (such as corporate listings). The license ends when the content is removed, except for copies the association keeps in its records and backup copies that expire on their own schedule.

Only add content you have the right to share. You are responsible for its accuracy and lawfulness and for the consent of anyone shown or named in it.

The Board reviews some content before it is published, such as listing changes, logo-use material, partner events and job postings. We may decline, edit for format or remove content that breaks these terms or does not suit the site.

Job postings follow the law of the place where the job is done. A posting for work in New York gives the place of work and the lowest and highest pay offered in good faith, as New York State and New York City law require, and no posting may limit who can apply because of a characteristic the law protects or, in New York City, because of an arrest or conviction record. The Board does not publish postings that do not.

Please use the site in the spirit of the association and its Ethics and Professional Standards. Do not:

• harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone, or post anything unlawful, defamatory or obscene;
• share personal information about hotel guests, or information your employer treats as confidential;
• send spam or unsolicited advertising, or collect members' details for that purpose;
• use the site to agree with competitors on prices, commissions or boycotts;
• pretend to be someone else, misrepresent your hotel, company or role, or speak for NYCAHC without the Board's written authorization;
• try to reach accounts, pages or data you are not allowed to see, or scan, probe or test the site's security;
• copy the site with automated tools, overload it or interfere with how it works;
• upload viruses or other harmful files, or use the site to break any law.

If you find a security problem, please tell us privately at contact@nycahc.org so we can fix it.

If an intimate image of you appears on the site without your consent, write to contact@nycahc.org and president@nycahc.org with the address of the page: we remove it within 48 hours of your request, and copies we know of with it.

New York City Association of Hotel Concierges® is a registered trademark of the association (U.S. Reg. No. 2,758,108), and so is its key logo with the New York skyline (U.S. Reg. No. 5,148,839). They may be used only as approved in writing by the Board of Directors, as the bylaws provide for corporate members, who ask for approval of their materials in the corporate portal.

The text, design and graphics of the site belong to the association or to those who licensed them to us. Photographs belong to the association or to the people and organizations that provided them; those used under a public license, such as the photographs on the home page, are credited to their photographers. You may view, download and print pages for your own use and for association business; any other use needs our written permission.

Other names and logos on the site, such as those of member hotels, corporate members and Les Clefs d'Or, are the trademarks of their owners. They are shown to identify the hotels where members work, the association's corporate members and the organizations it works with; showing them does not mean their owners sponsor or endorse the association.

If you believe something on the site infringes your copyright, write to website support at contact@nycahc.org, with a copy to the Board of Directors at bod@nycahc.org, or to the postal address below, with:

• your name, address, telephone number and email address;
• the work you believe is infringed, and the address of the page with the material you believe infringes it;
• a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorized by the owner, its agent or the law;
• a statement that the information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you own the right or may act for its owner;
• your physical or electronic signature.

We remove or disable the material promptly and tell the person who added it. That person may answer with a counter-notice that gives their name, address, telephone number and signature, names the material and where it was, states under penalty of perjury that they believe in good faith it was removed by mistake or misidentification, and accepts the jurisdiction of the federal district court for their address (for an address outside the United States, of a federal district court in New York) and service of process from the person who complained. We pass the counter-notice on and put the material back 10 to 14 business days later, unless the person who complained tells us they have gone to court. We close the accounts of people who repeatedly infringe others' rights.

The site links to services run by others, such as Intuit's payment pages, calendar services, social media and the websites of hotels and corporate members. Their own terms and privacy policies apply, and the association is not responsible for them.

The Board reviews every corporate member before it joins, but listings are not endorsements: the association does not guarantee the products or services of corporate members, hotels or other businesses mentioned on the site, and each is responsible for its own services. Member Concierges recommend what suits each guest, and information for visitors is general guidance.

The site emails you about your account, your application, events, dues and the association. Messages about your account, your membership, your application and your invoices are always sent. You choose which other kinds you receive, and every newsletter or invitation campaign has a link to change your choices or unsubscribe.

You agree that the association may give you notices and records electronically, by email to the address in your account or in the portal. The bylaws allow notices to members by any method of communication; where a law or the bylaws require another form, we use it. A notice of a data breach follows New York law: by email only if you agreed to that separately, otherwise by mail or by phone. You can ask for a paper copy of any notice or record, or ask to receive notices by mail instead, by writing to secretary@nycahc.org. Please keep your email address current and read what we send.

You may stop using the site at any time. To resign your membership, write to the Secretary at secretary@nycahc.org. To close your account or have your information deleted, write to website support at contact@nycahc.org, as the privacy policy describes.

Access to the member and corporate areas follows your membership. If a membership lapses, ends or is suspended, access may be limited or closed. Suspension and expulsion of a member follow the bylaws: a vote of two thirds of the entire Board, written notice and a right of appeal.

We may also suspend or close access to the site for anyone who breaks these terms or puts the site or its users at risk. Pausing access to protect the site is not a disciplinary decision: discipline of members follows only the bylaws. The sections on content, our name and logo, disclaimers, liability, indemnity and disputes continue to apply after access ends.

We work to keep the site accurate, available and secure, but we may change, pause or stop parts of it, for example for maintenance. The site and its content are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the extent the law allows, the association makes no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, availability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Information on the site is general guidance, not professional advice.

To the extent the law allows, the association and its directors, officers, members and volunteers are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data or goodwill, arising from the site or these terms. The association's total liability for any claim about the site is limited to the amount you paid the association in the twelve months before the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits a liability that the law does not allow to be limited, such as liability for gross negligence or willful misconduct.

If someone makes a claim against the association because of content you added, or because you broke these terms or the law, you agree to cover the association's reasonable losses and costs, including reasonable legal fees. We will tell you about the claim promptly and let you take part in the defense.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. If a dispute arises, please write to the Board at bod@nycahc.org first: most concerns can be settled by talking. A suspension or an expulsion is first taken through the appeal the bylaws provide.

Any court case about the site or these terms is brought in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York, and you and the association agree to their jurisdiction.

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows the current version. When a change matters to members, we tell account holders by email or in the portal before it takes effect. Using the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

These terms, together with the privacy policy and, for members, the bylaws and the Ethics and Professional Standards, are the whole agreement about the site. If a part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term right away, we may still do so later. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; the association may transfer them to a successor organization.