platinumPizza

The only thing that has changed from then to now is my revolving utilization went from 3% down to under 1%

Explain what you mean by that? What kind of spending were you doing?

Congrats!

pannhead51

Utilization being your actual debt vs. credit limits. Example: if all your revolving credit card limits is $100k and you have $10k on them then your utilization is 10%. Your Fico score generally starts to decline above 9%.

My spending is now averaging about $45k monthly, 90% is business related.

platinumPizza

WOW

I can confirm that the card is NOT invitation only! They just changed this so they can get less callers and accept people that want to apply that they want as members.

With my spending exceeding way over the minimum of 250k and not allowed the card, I am dumb founded at how they are choosing who to go with.

FYI: I dont buy computers or printers for the office to get my spending up, just my taxes on the card exceed 60k a year.

aviators99

Sorry, I can't parse this. What happened?

platinumPizza

See original post.

I know 3 people that have recieved the card since I called and were told they had no invitation. Two of them called back days later and they said they had one on file and they got the card....

I was told its a review process they will tell me when I get invited...

danrose

We should all thank American Express for keeping us out. It's a black credit card, that's it. If you have billions, it's nice, but other than that, its just another status symbol to entice new money grubby businessmen and Courtney Love. Is it just me or does it now lack class? Maybe that's what they're trying to regain. Or maybe I'm just jealous, whatever...who knows? Saw this on Mahalo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twhLW_6L9FY

It made my day, thank God someone is parodying the ridiculousness of this card.

dyna

Panhead,

It looked to me in your case they simply had not reviewed your account for eligibility before you called. That prompted them to give it a look. They liked what they saw and the 2-3 week delay was just them getting you your card and not that something had changed on either side.

I have a question for any Cent member. I recall seeing that you had to meet the spending requirement using an Amex Plat. Is that true? I could move some things around and "give" Amex Plat $400k per year in spending. First I would have to get the Amex Plat card rather than simply use my Amex DL Plat which I don't use much right now. My FICO should be good enough and my utilization is 1%.

Real Nice Forum BTW. Man you guys take this stuff to the max. I had no idea.

CK

mia

[Moderator enters ...]

I am bumping this to the top of the list due an error of omission by moderator mia.

[...moderator retreats]

stevens397

Welcome to FlyerTalk. Now take a deep breath. Then please give us a list of all of the other expensive things that you hate so we'll have a better idea how to tailor future conversations.

Rambuster

I found good use for my titanium card yesterday: I didn't have an ice scraper in my card to clear the icey windscreen so the Centurion card took care of that job!
Very robust indeed !

sdix

Funny you should day this as I did the very same thing the other day as well.

Flux

Ha ha! I was at an AmEx sponsored event before xmas, and the AmEx lady handed out ice scrapers with the AmEx logo on it. When I approached her to have one, she unfortunately had none left. Then I pulled my titanium card out of my pocket and said "no worries, I can scrape off the ice with this!"
Kinda cheesy, I know, but I think the annual fee entitles me to have some fun

mia

If I understand correctly the entire point of this thread is that there is no longer a formal spending requirement. No particular dollar amount will assure an invitation. In any event, I don't believe it matters which card(s) you use, but I am not a Centurion cardholder .

dyna

Good Point Mia. I never thought of it exactly that way. I still think there is a minimum even though it is by invitation. There must be unless you're a world famous person.

I'm just going to go by panhead's stats as a "rough" guideline. I believe he had an Amex Plat Biz, high 700's FICO, low debt ratio (which actually is already factored into the FICO) and he had 350K in spending in 6-7 months. Plus he said 90% of the expenses were business related.

I don't like the 5k initiation fee but the 2k per year should work for me. I don't want to find out later that since I used my Amex DL Plat I'm out of luck so I went ahead and got an Amex Plat Biz this week. I should be able to qualify for the Cent with the charges I make (400k/year) plus stats almost exactly like panhead's. If I don't then so be it. Worth a shot. Maybe I'll get some nice treatment out of it from time to time and then it will be worth it to me.

I'll let you know what happens in about a year :-)

dyna

SusanDK

Actually it's $2,500 per year, plus $1,500 if you want to have a secondary card holder (eg. spouse).

Let us know if/when you get it and your assessment of its worth. Lots of threads here on how others find value, or not.

Does anyone think (hope) that by tightening back up the requirements, the benefits might improve as well over time? I know many would like to see SPG Platinum re-introduced, and many would like to see Delta Gold moved to Platinum now that Delta introduced a fourth tier (as was done when USAir did the same). If AmEx reduces the total number of Centurion cardholders, perhaps they would be able to negotiate some of these benefits?

Susan