<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by DJ_Iceman:
DISCLAIMER: My wife and I are both in the military. Our pre-tax income is around $200K, and we spend around $50K a year on our platinum Amex. By all rights, we neither qualify for nor deserve a Centurion card.
So how do I get one? 
There have been many threads here about this topic. My specific question (for Centurion cardholders or those who have been offered an invitation and turned it down) is this: does charging with Amex's "partners" help? For example, I could by an $800 purse at Gucci or Escada. Given that Escada offers special deals to Amex cardholders, I purchase it there. Does that $800 look somehow better to the Centurion-blessing gods? The same applies to airlines, restaurants, even buying tickets to "Gold-only events" and things like that. The $150K annual spend criterion does not seem to be absolute, so can I help my chances by patronizing those vendors who have a special relationship with Amex?
</font>
Again, it is only being done by invitation, my understanding having a German Centurion Card is that they are limiting it to 2000 Cards issued in germany, so even now if you would qualify for one because of your spending pattern, you would not get one until one of the 2000 cancels his Centurion Card.
How I got it? Guess I was lucky because I was not spending so much, I was one who they tried out when they offerend the Centurion Card for the first time.