Originally Posted by
llary
Feels like most Centurion members spend half their lives trying to get the damn card then the other half trying to justify keeping it
The main feature I use is definitely my personal concierge. I hate dealing with people on the phone so much that I was paying a few thousand $ per year for a virtual PA, but my Centurion rep in Taiwan works so much better. I can send a text message to my rep saying something like "please arrange a 2 night break to x for our family this weekend". She knows the hotels I prefer, how much space we need and my preference for Amex specific deals, I get an email back a bit later with options and I can just reply back to book it. I have her organize all kinds of stuff like non hotel bookings, car service for clients, you name it. Saves me tens of hours every month and genuinely makes my life run smoother.
So, I don’t have a Centurion card, and I probably never will, but if I did have one (or rather, the income required in order to comfortably charge half a million a year to qualify for the card) I’d probably view the annual fee as a rounding error relative to the upside of having a personalized assistant on speed dial. I’m sure we’re all here because we love to chase elite benefits or whatever, but not having to worry about whether I get an upgrade or if some hotel chain is going to charge me for breakfast because my Centurion Assistant has figured it out for me sounds really nice in principle. Everything else is mostly just a nice side benefit.
I suspect that’s what a lot of people miss when it comes to evaluating the Centurion program on a per dollar basis. It shouldn’t be a “well, the card has an $X annual fee and it comes with a fancy gym membership that would otherwise cost $Y” … Now, whether Amex has successfully delivered on the promise of extremely personalized attention is the more pertinent question.