Originally Posted by
NotSoMuch
I currently pay for Velocity Black besides Centurion, and it’s pretty good. Quintessentially service has been going downhills for quite some time now, and I rarely bother using it even though it was offered for free.
Velocity black has the highest success rate for dining in London from my experience, and the travel side can trade blows with CTS (based on my UK experience) and other travel agents. Centurion FHR still edges out wherever available. Both are pretty good for flights lately.
Velocity also has an art sourcing service — obviously, it’s not as polished as having a curator, but they can come in clutch if you have a renovation project, and the only alternative is factory pieces the interior designer will charge a premium.
Whether the service standard is sustainable remains to be seen — Quintessentially, Aspire, Ten etc. all have massive ups and downs depending on how many white label clients they take on, and it’s only reasonable to suspect Velocity would do the same in the future. While I haven’t used Centurion long enough, my friends’ anecdotes suggest Amex is actually more stable than many of the competitors.
Also, Velocity Black might be more expensive — depending on how you value Centurion credits. You could recover some fees with Saks and equinox in the states (and maybe the pitiful Harvey Nichols and ...... booze credits in the UK). There is no such chance with Velocity, and I think their founders very much believe they are positioning themselves above Centurion and below 20k a year Mayfair boutiques and well trained PAs + corporate travel agencies.
If you have to wait long periods on the phone, and fulfillment of requests is far less reliable than it was in the past, and you don't have a personal relationship manager, and they mess up your travel arrangements, I can't personally see how Centurion's concierge is really worth anything at all, honestly; it seems to be a net negative in fact. I can access FHR and Platinum Travel Services as a Platinum member (I know to avoid Expedia like the plague), but PTS is also a very slow experience on the phone and seems like Velocity Black is much less hassle.
I actually got a call from one of Velocity Black's cofounders directly to sell me on the service which I thought was kind of interesting. Not entirely sure why; maybe because I'm a tech exec and they looked up my LinkedIn; despite my impressive resume and while many of my startups look like they're going to exit very nicely I'm not personally wealthy and just have a healthy tech exec salary. Centurion is out of reach for me at this point and even if it were in reach I'm just not sure how I could justify the cost. Whereas Velocity Black is something I could conceivably afford and looks pretty interesting and could have been a big help on this trip to Italy and France my family just went on, not to mention possibly saving some arguments my wife and I had over how best to plan our days in Italy, and train ticket procurement, and finding restaurants in Milan, and figuring out how best to get to Paris from the airport, and so on. Can't offset the fee with credits but honestly not interested in Equinox and we get a small credit for that on our Plat anyway even if we were interested. Plus there's the $10K initiation fee.
There are a few statuses and perks that are nice like Delta Platinum, reserved tables at Centurion lounges, etc. but you can get Hilton Diamond and IHG Platinum with other cards, etc., and I'm mostly a Hyatt guy anyway.
I'm certainly considering Velocity Black. I'll keep my Platinum card despite the destruction of the Platinum concierge service; I value the lounges and the net cost to me is zero anyway.