I had two great RM's in the UK - one a face-to-face manager (one of the first centurion customers to have one in the UK back in 2011 as a trial) and then a fantastic Pod based manager in Brighton. I changed from the face-to-face to a pod purely because of my needs.
What I discovered from American Express records is that I was on a marketing black list that not even staff, managers, senior managers and executives knew about.
This effectively meant that I had to discover an offer was available in the market place, ask about it, have it sent to me manually by my RM and then ask them to check why I didn't get it? Their reply would always be "check Royal Mail hasn't lost it" or "let us reset marketing" for you."
It was only after four years of no offers without telling them I knew an offer was in the market place that I conducted a subject access review on my account and discovered the horrors of their practice.
They had effectively black listed me from the day I because a Centurion client. The very day I joined!!!! My monthly spend in year one and two was in excess of GBP50k monthly as an average, my highest spend had hit around £80k in a month and I was apparently a marketing blacklist.
What is astounding here is that they were happy to let me pay an annual fee and be invited to the Centurion programme, but I was not permitted access to any of the marketing or benefits - even my web access to marketing was blocked and it took two years for them to fix this after me hounding them politely.
I stuck by the brand because I believe a loyal customer truly sticks by a brand they believe in and tries to work for the benefit of all members.
I offered to give my time to assist a panel to be established where card members like myself could provide valuable feedback on broken areas and areas of improvement just because I really was wanting a positive change.
Finally when things went so wrong, I asked an a contact to establish contact with an American Express Senior Executive (board level) in New York, USA. That Executive asked a UK Senior Vice President to contact me and I have to say she was pleasant to speak to, but sadly, somehow, the powers that destroyed my relationship with American Express buried the situation she was trying to investigate and created a scenario that prevented us from communicating again. What chance do I have of arbitration and fair outcomes if the people who really want to help are being swayed or prevented from talking to me.
Finally, the UK Country Manager didn't even feel it was worth his while to talk to me or reply to a single email when I passionately wrote to him in order to present my case and situation.

Mostly, I am disturbed by their behaviour because of a personal issue that they have left me having to deal with. When I tried to book a Centurion Travel offer in 2011 for the Orient Express Company, their mistakes prevented me from utilising the benefit. They admitted, along with other failures already mentioned, full liability and said my face-to-face RM would take care of the issue. They tried originally to get the offer extended with The Orient Express Company, but as this was an American Express error, the company declined and American Express said it would manage this directly with me – a direct compensation from them. My grandfather and my girlfriend were the people I was taking on this trip. My grandfather was a very prudent as he was from a time where he had seen great hardship and to him a trip like this was very lavish. I wanted to spoil him and therefore told him I had secured an amazing offer. He and I spoke about this and after much talking, he agreed to travel with us. When I told him the trip was slightly delayed because the offer fell through, he was fine, however I was quick to reassure him that the trip would occur regardless of the American Express management of it. A big mistake of mine to mention that last sentence because he interpreted that as me making a promise to take him no matter what the cost – he felt I was irresponsible with my actions if I were just to make that decision and he made me promise him to wait for American Express to resolve it or what until another offer came through. I gave him my word! I waited two years for them to deal with it and then he suffered a debilitating stroke and heart attack which has left him unable to travel anymore. My world fell apart and I shared this with American Express when they were talking to me and I also shared this with the UK Country Manager when American Express were no longer communicating with me properly. No one still replied or properly address my situation – instead they cancelled my Centurion card and passed my credit card account to a UK Law firm.

I ask myself everyday why I didn’t do things differently and why I was treated so poorly by a brand who I relied on so heavily – to the point where they asked me to cancel other financial instruments in order to show some further clarity on my UK credit profile.

I respectfully ask each and every member to be mindful of how you rely on a brand as it clearly appears their perspective on you is what matters most at the end of the day - not tenure, loyalty or how much you open yourself up to them and their financial investigations when they ask you to do so in order to remain a member.

My case against them will be on different levels and I am saddened to have to even pursue this route – a proper opportunity to talk to a senior level human being at the company should have been made possible.