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How do you get a personal account rep? I spend 300k a year, never had a personal account rep from AMEX...

lamosca

As a US expat who travels internationally with my family very frequently, I had hoped that the benefits of the Centurion might outweigh the extremely high fees. I'm beginning to think that I was wrong about that. I don't care about the "mystique" of the "black card" and related tomfoolery if it isn't going to lead to practical improvements in my life (and it increasingly appears that it won't). I'm doing fine with the Platinum card, so maybe I should just stick with that and keep my $10,000 in my pocket (minus $450, haha).

Centurion

You do not need Centurion to get an account rep. I have a personal account rep for a green card. I am not sure what the spend requirement is to trigger a rep. The rep did help me with a big issue I had with Amex.

Steve M

I think your expectations were way of line with what even Amex says the Centurion product is.

10 cards? That in of itself is asking for scrutiny.

You knew the fees going in. If they are so clearly absurd, why did you get the card in the first place?

How is that unusable? You get $500 off a purchase of $3000 or more. If it's a merchant that sells something you might want to buy, it's a great offer to come out of the blue in the mail. If you had the notion that by having a Centurion card, your mailbox would be full of offers for completely free merchandise from high-end merchants with no purchase obligation, you didn't get it from Amex.

Why? This makes no sense. Presumably you have a Centurion card and do business with Amex because you find that the card suits your needs, and that the value you get at least matches the fees you pay. What does someone else getting comp'd the card have to do with that? It's almost as if you are saying that why you really have it is because of the perceived status and exclusivity, and that if Amex doesn't maintain that, then you'll walk.

saint

I'm not sure if this is true or not but I doubt that he would be saying that he doesn't have to pay the annual fee. If he was going to lie about having the card, he probably would have just said he paid the annual fee.

As Mia correctly mentioned, maybe at the time they did some cross marketing promotion with his wealthy clients. I'm sure AMEX didn't appreciate him doing an interview and bragging that he got the card free. But I wouldn't want to put up $5,000 to bet that this didn't happen.

Financial companies make bonehead moves all the time.

some dude

While I don't know Don Sabatini, I do know some of the owners of businesses involved in his secretentourage.com, and I can say with certainty that they do business with some *extremely* wealthy people, such as royal families of small oil-rich countries and other UHNI (Ultra-High-Networth-Individuals).

His group of clientele (as you can tell from the website) spend ridiculous amounts of money on high-end cars (such as Rolls Royce, McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc), and watches (Patek Philippe, IWC, etc ...), and are frequent guests at very high end restaurants, hotels, etc. I'm sure these guys are *exactly* the types that Amex wants seen using their Centurion card.

I really wouldn't be surprised in the least if they hooked Sabatini up with a free Centurion card to get more exposure to his clientele.

saint

Exactly some dude. The other guy that told me he was also comped a Black Card fit the same type of profile as this other business owner. Dealt with extremely ultra high net worth individuals and families.

Personally I don't get the whole obsession with the Black Card thingy. Several of my clients have one and some make a bigger deal out of it then others.

bubu-SNA

Steve M,

my annoyance at someone like Don Sabatini getting fees waved is that AMEX refuses to do it for their rank & file centurions no mater the transgression or failure in service. Waving fees is a VERY slippery slope; much more so than the targeted gifts AMEX does send from time to time. It leaves the perception of your business being taken for granted.

On a side note, I think charging annual fees of customers who generate you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue via processing fees is poor marketing. Charge a $10,000 initiation fee for new accounts and put up an annual spending requirement to get the fee waved. As it stands a gold card gets MR bonuses for spend...you'd think they'd do something for centurions to encourage spend on the card?

...one other thing to add.

The ultra high end worth individuals I interact with could care less about a black amex, or any card for that matter. Their "assistants" use whatever generic credit card the bank where they have a private relationship issues.

If AMEX is trying to penetrate the ultra high net worth individual segment by using Don Sabatini for marketing then I think they are missing the bigger picture of how most of these individuals use (or don't use) cards period.

Aaron01

I think you're being a little unreasonable. If you don't want to pay the fee than you don't have to have the card.
If you're going to feel like unappreciated because of what someone else - no matter how "undeserving" you may deem him to be - is getting you're never going to be happy.

If they are indeed comping him the fee it is in no way different than a restaurant comping the meal of some celebrity even if you or I have eaten there many times and personally know the waitstaff/management/ownership/etc... It shouldn't, doesn't and wouldn't change your or my dining experience. Why would a credit card be any different?
If they feel that it will bring them in more business, which may or may not be a logical deduction if he does work with a multitude of UHNWIs, then the benefits far outweigh the costs.

In the end, this isn't zero-sum. You're not losing anything because this guy got his annual fee comped. He's not taking anything away from you. You're getting exactly what you signed up for in the T&C. They've violated no contract laws.

bubu-SNA

Aaron01,

You are right. I think my snarky attitude mostly comes out of my perceived decline in Centurion benefits & perks over the years.

parpar22

Spend over a million a year and you will get one.

wspfan

I spend over $1.5 million a year with amex and I don't have an account rep. I never even got a gift card in 2012. Benefits and service are declining.

parpar22

Well we spend way more than 1.5 million. I was just saying the 350k was not going to get you one. I wasn't talking about gift cards. We never have gotten anything. My rep sent me an xmas gift but it was pretty useless. Nice thought though. But none of these free gift or $500 gift cards others talk about. Member since 1970

MLM JET

I know someone else that called to cancel his card because of the fees and got it comped as well. He spent 20-30 million a year on it.

jandersinc

I have significant amount of spending (7 figures) and haven't been notified that I have an account rep. However I haven't asked about one nor have I had any problems with my account that I've needed to talk to anyone about.

So if one is automatically assigned they haven't told me.