Originally Posted by ragsk

I am not sure about different hurdles in different countries but in the hope of providing some clarity here is how/why i got offered it:

I have have had a British Airways American Express points card for about 10 years

I used my BA card day in day out for everything. Really punish it - travel, london tube, coffees, shopping, gifts, holidays, jewellery, watches, restaurants, wine, branded clothes, theatre, shows, musicals etc etc. I probably averaged about £30-£35k+ per month on the card. That is without any corporate or company spend - all personal and its hugely diversified and varied.

I never asked them for a Centurion once. Wasn't even on my radar. Got offered it (informal telephone discussion) about 2 years ago and turned it down on the basis that I felt the charges were OTT. Then got offered it again more recently and accepted - I had direct experience of the Centurion service last year when I got stuck in Amsterdam airport due to fog and one of my friends had the card and used it to expedite us out of there and back to London. I was impressed. So when they offered it to me again, I remembered the Amsterdam experience and thought why the heck not !