American Express Membership Rewards - Platinum concierge

... I know I'm revisiting an old chestnut here but why do they call this a concierge service when it's no better than an intermediary for booking restaurant tables or flowers for delivery. GBP 395 pa has got to be worth something more than a "No, we don't do that" at the other end of the phone line and a bit of coloured plastic... Anyone with a Centurion have any better experience of this so-called 'service'?

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but Platinum Concierge is a very loose term now. It used to be good, but towards the end of my tenure as a Platinum customer I came to a similar feeling, that they were not really that much help.

Centurion on the otherhand started really well, and have gone from strength to strength. Tickets are a real speciality for them, especially for big events, they can keep tasks open and keep track on them for events that are some way off. They managed to source tickets for the MTV Movie Awards in LA for last month, Glastonbury, Robbie Williams, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake - all of which had sold out previously at the box office. Often get asked in the office 'how on earth did you get tickets?'.

They are really good at finding other bizarre stuff too, I asked them to find the person who made the Nimbus brooms for the Harry Potter movies, which they managed (takes pride of place in my Kitchen); sometimes it does take them a short while to carry out the tasks but they do deliver.

I've got them looking for a UK stockist for a brand of luggage at the moment, they are liasing with the US office for the MTV Music Awards which they are updating me on. Simple stuff like flowers and restaurants is a breeze for them.

Have no quarrels in paying my £650 fee each year. Platinum on the otherhand, is not half the product it used to be that the fee is climbing back up to pre-Centurion levels.

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks for the thoughts Richard. You reckon you might be able to set your Centurion concierge the challenge of finding a TA in Cairo who will ticket and charge an Amex without the customer being present? And preferably without charging a 3% handling fee too... If you think you might be able to help, let me know and I'll email you.

That would be pretty cool for RTW tickets!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMannion:
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but Platinum Concierge is a very loose term now. It used to be good, but towards the end of my tenure as a Platinum customer I came to a similar feeling, that they were not really that much help.

Centurion on the otherhand started really well, and have gone from strength to strength. Tickets are a real speciality for them, especially for big events, they can keep tasks open and keep track on them for events that are some way off. They managed to source tickets for the MTV Movie Awards in LA for last month, Glastonbury, Robbie Williams, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake - all of which had sold out previously at the box office. Often get asked in the office 'how on earth did you get tickets?'.

They are really good at finding other bizarre stuff too, I asked them to find the person who made the Nimbus brooms for the Harry Potter movies, which they managed (takes pride of place in my Kitchen); sometimes it does take them a short while to carry out the tasks but they do deliver.

I've got them looking for a UK stockist for a brand of luggage at the moment, they are liasing with the US office for the MTV Music Awards which they are updating me on. Simple stuff like flowers and restaurants is a breeze for them.

Have no quarrels in paying my £650 fee each year. Platinum on the otherhand, is not half the product it used to be that the fee is climbing back up to pre-Centurion levels.

Thanks,
Richard</font>

do you get these tickets at face value or do they charge a hefty premium?

(not that I personally have an issue with that sort of thing - just wondering....)

Virtualtroy, have you asked Platinum to do that exact task? There must be someone on this board that will know a TA that will do this.

Matthew, as for the tickets: Sometimes they are at face value and sometimes theres a 'premium' as £5-15 on top of the ticket price. I don't really mind this, saves me queuing up, or havign to get up early to buy tickets. The seat allocations they get are very good too.

Thanks,
Richard

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMannion:


Matthew, as for the tickets: Sometimes they are at face value and sometimes theres a 'premium' as £5-15 on top of the ticket price. I don't really mind this, saves me queuing up, or havign to get up early to buy tickets. The seat allocations they get are very good too.

Thanks,
Richard </font>


I got a ticket for Glastonbury from them at £45 above face value (not a bad deal as they originally found a broker selling then at £150 over face value). I get the impression that they always use brokers and don't usually get an allocation of tickets for top shows exclusively for black cardholders. Service has got better since I asked for an individual name as a POC - seemed in danger of getting a bit big and faceless. I haven't been too impressed with this service - there have been 3 or 4 shows that they've drawn a blank on in the last year. Still - it's a useful tool for the flowers/restaurants etc. The travel benefits are superb and any trouble with the account is always dealt with reasonably, but frankly for £650 a year it's never going to work miracles is it? They couldn't even arrange a test drive at my local Alan Day dealership for me.

I've never had any problems with the Plat concierge service but then again I've never asked them to deal with anything too complicated. On the odd occasion that they've arranged restaurant bookings for me, the charge on my Amex card has run into the hundreds of pounds (more if I'm daft enough to choose the wine myself).

Regardless of how Amex wishes to differentiate the plat/black products, I would expect then to exercise a little common sense in accepting/denying a request where Amex's bottom line/my cash are involved. But then again, I'm an old fashioned capitalist (supply, demand, respect for the colour green etc) so I'm not necessarily living on the same planet as most people these days.

Seems kind of ironic. I thought Plat & Centurion concierge was provided by the same company

That's not irony. Just annoying.


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'If we went into the funeral business, people would stop dying.'
—Martin R. Shugrue, Vice-Chairman Pan Am.

Platinum concierge is a complete waste of space. Any person with a pulse and a phone can do a lot better.

I agree. I've tried some completely mudane requests lately in relation to tickets, and they've not been able to help. Used to be FAR better before centurion was introduced. But the b*stards won't offer me one.

Sorry a week in the Spanish countryside has meant I haven't contributed to this developing conversation. Back to the initial query: what could be more basic than 1) find a TA in Cairo which is reputable and speaks comprehensible English; 2) Doesn't matter if it's Amex Travel; 3) Book tickets on my behalf; 4) Charge many thousands of GBPs to my card. The words looking, gift horse and in the mouth spring to mind. But then why not concentrate on a high margin business like booking restaurant tables instead?!?

Overall Centurion Concierge is really great, if you have a good one assigned to you.

What's interesting is that there is a separate team that handles US cardmembers and UK cardmembers; AND they don't talk to each other.

Last year I was planning a trip to London with my family and wanted to get tickets to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - The Musical". It had just opened and my date was 6 months out. My US concierge turned the request over to the ticket specialist, who failed miserably at the task. I threw the request back at my concierge and suggested she call a UK concierge for help with a London show.

This was so radical an idea, it took them a full day just to find out how to call a UK concierge.

Two days later I had prime seats for about 15% over the ticket price.

It was a great show. And for some reason, they sell Ben and Jerry's ice cream at intermission. There's no better domestic ice cream available in the UK?

But I digress...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Echelon:
What's interesting is that there is a separate team that handles US cardmembers and UK cardmembers; AND they don't talk to each other.
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I know Centurion UK have liaised with AmEx US on a number of occasions for me:- Tickets for US events, information on forthcoming US events, oh and to find and despatch a US box of cereals that are not available in the UK!

Thanks,
Richard

Last week i called centurion concierge and was so very disapoinited when they could not get tickets for a common broadway show...the person said they were having problems with their computer...it turns out the centurion concierge was using tickmaster on the web!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Echelon:
What's interesting is that there is a separate team that handles US cardmembers and UK cardmembers; AND they don't talk to each other.

...

I threw the request back at my concierge and suggested she call a UK concierge for help with a London show.

...

This was so radical an idea, it took them a full day just to find out how to call a UK concierge.
</font>

I've done consulting work for Amex in the past and they are very decentralised.

I could give you some examples, but they have a serious right-hand left-hand issue.