factory81

See. I use to, then I thought the Centurion lounge could - and then in reality the Centurion lounges are not close very often, and the time worth it to go there isn't really worth it.

In short, it is just easier to stop and buy a meal vs. do the lounge stuff. Even if I go to any of the Cent lounges, it might just be for a beer and charger.

It isn't that it is below me or anything, I just don't find it worth it to try and fill up/get a meal at these places. Let the other people get their fill

bizum

They should charge all guests (inc family). Only the primary and AU should be granted free access. Seems like that would help a bit..

DCEsquire

Agree. This is a gem. The lounge has actually changed my behavior is several respects.

First: signed up for the plat card. Other benefits were nice, but really this lounge. I also transit SFO more than other airports. If they had an IAD or LAX lounge it would be a no brainer.

Second: Because of the shower, I now am now willing to fly redeyes back much more often. I can get back to IAD by 6 or 7. Have some food before boarding but frankly, most important, take a shower and change out of my work clothes before heading back. That's worth my loyalty and more! I think I mentioned this in an earlier post so pardon my repetition.

bizorbetter

cent's free and 1 guest

plat's 25$ and guests are 50$

problem solved.......last vegas visit was a joke it was so busy

jsk1973

Taking away the guest and/or AU benefit would be one thing, but taking away a primary cardholder benefit would anger a lot of people.

bizorbetter

when the cent lounge first opened plats did not have the benefit of free access. Some were given a few passes but it was not a benny.

i was very surprised when amex caved and allowed it since the cent benefits have been diluted to that of a plat anyhow.

you are correct that to take it away now would be difficult but if the initial goal was to provide cents with a benny because of losing all the airline lounges they have failed miserably .

Also.....when the lounge first opened it felt very nice.......it now feels no different than others in some ways. Yes the food is better but if you cant sit down to eat whats the point?

krazykanuck

My guess is that the cost of supporting a the lounge network for the free benefit of a small client base would have been too expensive. Plus for people that live in cities where there is a Centurion lounge that can be reason enough to get a Plat and pay Amex their $450 fee.

bizorbetter

I hear what you are saying but surely the lounges are less expensive to run with just the cents in there and the plats paying to get in right?

So the question is do they sell enough cards to plats that only want the lounge benny to justify the cost of letting in so many people......food, drinks, etc etc

and what is the cost of pi$$ing off the cents?

I guess they have drilled those numbers at HQ and here we are

factory81

Honestly, who hangs out in the lounge at their home airport? I've heard of people wanting to use it at connecting airports........

That must just for people who want to hang out at the airport all day lol

jsk1973

I bet the answer to the bolded question is a definite "yes." I bet Plats outnumber Cents by at least 100 to 1. The CLs and the purchase protection are really the only two reasons I want a Plat card.

mia

It used to be possible to estimate the number of Centurion and Platinum cards issued using data from Departure Magazine circulation reports. This is no longer possible because they stopped breaking out Centurion vs Platinum. The USA ratio was about 40:1.

jsk1973

Interesting. I would have guessed the ratio would have been far higher. How long ago was the 40:1 estimate?

Points Scrounger

I like to get to the airport early. You never know what you'll face at security!

mia

2007.

American Express Publishing is now owned by Time Inc. USA mid-2015 circulation was 1.313 million which would suggest ~32,000 USA Centurion cards, and ~1.25 million Platinum. Amortizing the cost of these lounges over 32,000 accounts seems unrealistic. They need to spread, and ultimately recover, the cost from the combined Centurion and Platinum cardholder base.

Or in traffic to the airport.

krazykanuck

I mean, sure it would be cheaper to run a bunch of lounges without people in them, but your cost per use would skyrocket and Amex would be paying a ton of money for little benefit. Using the numbers above, say there are still 32k Cents in the US (and that was 9 years ago, before the benefits began getting clobbered), and from a blog post it said Amex is spending $7M to build the new lounge at IAH and rent will be $704,000 per year. That's one lounge with capex of $218 per card holder and $22 per card holder per year, and that's not even thinking about the operating cost! At LGA they normally have 2-3 front desk people, 1-2 bartenders, 3-4 restaurant attendants, a couple managers, and who knows how many people in the kitchen. Probably $300-400/hr in labor costs per hour the lounge is open. If you're going to have that level of spend on operating and fixed cost alone, it only makes sense to have people using it and feeling like they get value from it.

I'd also bet the risk of irritating centurion card holders is pretty low and/or the trade off of keeping more platinum card happy and paying fees would make it worth it anyway. I mean even today, after the Cent has lost so many benefits, if they are still paying the annual fee, is a crowded lounge going to be the tipping point for them? I doubt it.

I live a good ~25-30 miles from IAH, and Houston traffic is unpredictable pretty much any time normal people are awake, so it's not like I get to the airport 3 hrs early and sit there but I do like to get there 90 mins early at a minimum.