Originally Posted by
nyc2cal
The same "pod" of agents that handle regular services is cross-trained to handle travel. If you book through a human being on that pod, it will not be an Expedia booking. You do not want an Expedia booking if you ever have to change your ticket. Trust me on that. You will spend hours of your life on hold. If you book through amextravel.com, even when logged in as a Centurion member, it will be an Expedia booking.
The "pod" system has been a disaster. I believe AMEX knows this, and has (allegedly) stopped taking new Centurion members because they don't have enough resources to deal with the existing customers. My guess is it became easier for AMEX to overload a "pod" as opposed to an assigned person, and that's what happened.
I read this topic despite the fact that I will likely never be a Centurion member, but of course all the comments make me never want to be one. Meanwhile in Platinum land the concierge service which used to be somewhat interesting has become utterly pointless; I had gotten some amazing recommendations and experiences through them in the past but they now seem to be literally outsourced to India now.
For this reason I've been looking into concierge services: Quintessentially and Velocity Black. Quintessentially is out of my price range for the services they offer but Velocity Black looks quite interesting. A Platinum card plus Velocity Black seems like it might be a much better deal than Centurion as it stands, and I'm even considering it.