Super luxury valet parking at Bob Hope Airport to end

Apparently there is a limit to how much people are willing to pay to pamper their cars and save a few minutes, even in car-crazy L.A.

An effort at Bob Hope Airport to provide super luxury valet parking for $14,600 a year has been a flop and will be discontinued.

Despite the upsides — reserved, extra-wide, covered spaces and shortened wait times — the deluxe valet service has not drawn a single customer.

“We’ve had no takers since the product was introduced,” said Clint Joy, a vice president for Standard Parking, which took over operations at Bob Hope last month.

The changes affect Black Diamond and Platinum parking, the top rungs for valet parking at the airport. The luxury services debuted in December 2009.

The Black Diamond option was the priciest service at $14,600, and the Platinum valet offering was a more reasonable $31 a day. But it, too, has not been faring well, Joy said.

The decision to eliminate the services is a bit of a reality check for airport authority officials, who have been grappling for months with how to stem declining parking revenue, a vital source of income for the airport.

Joy recommended that the Gold valet service, which costs $21 a day, be enhanced, perhaps with a “frequent parker” program.

Similar to the frequent flier programs that airlines offer, it would let Standard identify each driver so employees could address him or her by name.

An enhancement that’s already in place is a shortened average wait time for valet customers picking up their vehicles, Joy said.

Customers wait an average of three minutes now that Standard has taken over the service, he said.

“Prior to that, it was closer to seven or eight minutes,” he added.

Standard representatives also outlined possible ways to increase revenue, such as an online parking reservation system that would designate a certain number of parking spaces near the terminal that would be available by reservation.

Drivers would pay a premium for the service, said Pamela Brown, vice president of business development for Standard, adding that it could either be a flat fee or calculated on a per-day basis.

Brown said the reservation system would cost the airport $2 per permit.

At other airports, the online service has filled spaces mid-week and generates a couple of thousand dollars a month, Brown said.

“It’s been a very popular convenience,” she said.

mark.kellam@latimes.com