Thanks. I'm in a relatively small market in the Pacific Northwest. No doubt I'd be no one special if I were in NYC or LA.

I'm a relatively new business card holder. I had been using my personal amex for business reimbursables for most of the year and racked up about $1.6M on my personal card. I eventually started an LLC and got a card tied to that entity. I'll have about $500k between that biz gold and now my biz centurion by the end of the year, but I've also moved a bunch of spend off my personal CSR over to amex now as well.

And by pre-funding, you're correct. In anticipation for large purchases, I wire funds from my margin account to amex ahead of time to fund those purchases. Otherwise, they'll only let me charge about $250k at a time. At one point, I had pre-funded $600k on margin, then spent $500k on credit beyond that before getting reimbursed. So I was effectively out over my skis for $1.1M for a minute there. I was a little nervous but it was ultimately very low risk. I had it all paid off within the cycle.

I was on the phone with them and in a "by the way" kind of way, I said I was interested in the black card. They connected me to the Centurion desk and I chatted with them for a minute. Nothing committal. Evidently, when they reviewed my spend, they realized it was mostly business related anyway, so they offered me the business version of the card. It makes more sense than the personal version.

Also, if it's relevant, I've been with Amex for more than a decade and have never missed a full payment. 830+ FICO. In all honesty, I'm pretty surprised I got an invite given prior year spends were on personal cards only.