American Express Membership Rewards - Platinum IEC Card and concierge service ?

I have an offer to move from my Gold Amex card to a platinum IEC
card as Amex in Ireland is now closing and moving to the UK.

There is mention of a concierge service as part of the card.
Just wondering how useful it is and what people use the
service for and how good are they ?.

I dont see myself booking a helicopter at 10minutes notice
anytime soon. But it might be useful when traveling for arranging
restaurants and surpirses for the fiance ect.

What is the criteria for the Centurion card read of the posts and
people talk off spending 250k Dollars a month !.

Thanks
pumuckl

I have an offer to move from my Gold Amex card to a platinum IEC
card as Amex in Ireland is now closing and moving to the UK.

There is mention of a concierge service as part of the card.
Just wondering how useful it is and what people use the
service for and how good are they ?.

I dont see myself booking a helicopter at 10minutes notice
anytime soon. But it might be useful when traveling for arranging
restaurants and surpirses for the fiance ect.

What is the criteria for the Centurion card read of the posts and
people talk off spending 250k Dollars a month !.

Thanks
pumuckl

The concierge server is OK. I wouldn’t expect miracles, they will be able to arrange vip entry into some clubs and also book restaurants. I've often had fully booked restaurants suddenly have a seat available if Amex calls (over when I called).

You will get put through to the same team as Centurion holders get, but often if you ask for something like "find me this and send it to me" they will say "sorry, that [find and seek] service is only for our Centurion members".

The criteria (or is it criterion?) for Centurion (I assume IEC) is unknown as there are no predefined prerequisites for the UK + they are not issuing any in the UK atm.

Hope this helps and welcome to FT ;)

Chris

Chris
Thanks for the input I guess I will give it a try when the card
arrives. I am used to arranging things myself but I guess which
such a large fee I should get used to letting someone else do
the leg work !.

Will be interesting how they manage with the Irish market.

Thanks
Pumuckl

I've used their concierge. I was making reservations and plans for a client of mine to fly East and stay at a hotel near Newark New Jersey. I asked the hotel about an airport shuttle and was told by the bellman and the front desk manager that there wasn't one but they could arrange sedan service for $100. I tried find information on my own using the internet but no luck. I called the AMEX Platinum Concierge and they found a shuttle and e-mailed the answer to me the next morning.
However, on a later service, they were unable to get tickets to a sold-out B.B.King concert in Denver, Colorado.

The original poster is asking about the concierge service offered by the International Euro Currency card, which is issued and administered in the United Kingdom. Does anyone know if American Express uses the same concierge service worldwide or is each outsourced to a different provider?

dennis

The original poster is asking about the concierge service offered by the International Euro Currency card, which is issued and administered in the United Kingdom. Does anyone know if American Express uses the same concierge service worldwide or is each outsourced to a different provider?

I think it is outsourced and organized in different ways in different parts of the world. By looking different reports in this forum, it seems that UK concierge service is something different compared to US. Are we sure that UK concierge is outsourced at all?

I think it is outsourced and organized in different ways in different parts of the world. By looking different reports in this forum, it seems that UK concierge service is something different compared to US. Are we sure that UK concierge is outsourced at all?
Business Traveler (UK) in an article titled "Play Your Cards Right" states that UK American Express has an in-house concierge service. It's also a good article to decide if the various services are worth the extra cost of these high-end cards.

It seems unlikely that Amex would own the concierge in various geographies to serve the needs of a small customer group (even though they're wealthy). They outsource it to a company called Circles in the US. They have done so in other geographies too. So there's bound to be differences in service quality across countries/regions.

I used to have the UK Centurion when I was over there. The concierge is in house. From my experience, they were much more helpful than the USA Circles concierge. Again, not many miracles, but much easier to work with and they ALWAYS followed through with their commitments. USA seems to promise returned calls/emails that never come.

What is the criteria for the Centurion card read of the posts and
people talk off spending 250k Dollars a month !.


for the US card is 250k a YEAR not a month

I like the IDC Centurion UK-based concierge service. From my experience, it seems that the same team that provides account customer service doubles up with concierge services. I personally like the service more than my U.S.-based accounts because the customer service team seems to be small enough that I often reach phone representatives whom I recognize from previous calls; I also find it helpful that they allow me to e-mail them directly. Overall, my experience has been that the staff follows up and calls back. That counts for a lot in my book!