And it gets worse.

3 Business Plat Employee cards = $900/year

3 Personal Plat Additional Cards = $175/year

I'll update how it goes in Oct. but just for the heck of it as I want to see their reaction when I arrive after 3pm (my connecting flight is at midnight) I'll see if they let me into HKG Centurion. If they are difficult I will try for a quick snack and drinks and leave fast. Will have 3 carry-ons btw me & wife and a decent price I found was roughly $10usd a piece to be held up to 24hrs at the Airport Express train station. Then we can head into city for few hrs. & come back to the lounge in the late evening. Other option is pay $75 each to access Cathay business lounge and visit Centurion later and not leave the airport.

That's not what I was paying for my Business Platinum card - I guess I will check this year's renewal carefully, as it sounds like I might as well have two personal cards.

Price change discussion is here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...ase-595-a.html

The Business and Personal Platinum features have diverged quite a bit, compared to a stretch in which they were nearly identical. I cannot say if Business is worth more to you, but they are not interchangeable.

You don't seem to understand the issue. The problem is not entering the lounge, it's exiting to Hong Kong immigration once you've transferred from arrivals level to departures level. As noted already, there's no way to do that without an escort from an airline employee. IMO it's a very selfish thing to do just so you can access a lounge because you are seriously inconveniencing staff.

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Half dozen posts transferred to this thread:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...s-reserve.html

The posts may briefly appear in both threads.

Not sure about the other lounges but at SFO it's usually between 0 and 1 tables reserved for Centurions. Most of the time when I go they don't have any available but one of the staffers will find a single somewhere for me or even share a table, which is fine. I don't think I've ever been there and not seen another Centurion cardholder come in. Often they will glare at me like I'm a squatter sitting at their reserved table. Maybe I need to dress better or look more stressed.

Then it really doesn't make sense for SEA Centurion Lounge to block off that many tables for Centurion.
I've never been to the SFO one, but I presume it's bigger than SEA's.

The number of tables reserved at SEA “studio” varies day by day, Amex tracks all our travel activities, they have a pretty good idea how many Cent members might show up at a given day and time, same goes for Plat, their priority is Centurion as it’s what the card was designed for.

Yes, SEA have a few Centurions visit and a handful of regulars from what I am told. I've seen another couple of Centurion customers at the reserved tables there a handful of the times that I've visited. You do normally get looks from the other customers when it is busy, especially when I am in there with my wife (who has Centurion too) and we take up two of the tables with our baby boy and his stroller.

the only centurion lounges that I have difficulty finding a seat in is the Miami one. That one is so much worse than the rest.

Was in LAS last Sunday. Usually the Centurion area is empty but this time there was one person seated. My 2 sons and I took a seat to which the guy sitting stated "you know, this area is reserved." Not sure what the appropriate reply should have been but I simply agreed with him and carried on!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...apphire-attack

Amex says Platinum card accounts increased 60% after they refreshed the card. At the end of the day, crowding will not subside given the popularity of the card and higher travel demand generally

With such kind of growth, perhaps the next step is to increase the fee by 25-85% and marry the fee increase with a different benefit features mix that has a high degree of the high nominal dollar value benefits not being used in full. I would expect that Amex wants to move ahead with increased fees before the next recession hits and hits hard.


Higher card fees and the next recession are ways to see overcrowding reduced.

I'd welcome a big fee increase. Whatever it takes at this point to reduce crowding. To me, there's no point keeping the same AF if it means a reduction in benefits.