QtownDave

Here in PHL our club is small so while I don't like losing inbound entry but I do understand why they are doing it.

Although the overcrowding shouldn't have been such a surprise to Amex since they must of known how many of us there are.

joe_miami

The loss of arrival access really stinks.

Meanwhile, Amex continues to allow “travel hacker” types to sign up for the Ameriprise Platinum card, which has no annual fee for the first year, then cancel it after a year and immediately apply for a new one. Inexplicable.

scubadu

Honestly, the "hay days" of airport lounges are winding down in my opinion. I've tried to start this discussion many times in this forum, but nobody really wants to have an honest discussion regarding why lounges are crowed. Everyone just wants to argue their point of view about how to solve it (of which, contrary to the "usual suspects" in this forum, likely would not solve the issue).

The reason that lounges are overcrowded is simple; access is now too easy to obtain. Period. Full stop. And I don't mean just guests or kids, I mean even primary cardholders. It's just too easy (i.e. cheap) to get in. Period. No amount of "tweaking" access requirements is going to change that, is just won't, no matter how many people here wish it would and trot out the same tired arguments over and over and over.

When I got the Amex Platinum card, the annual fee was $450, full stop. That was the bill. No airline credit. No UberEats credit. No Saks credit. It was $450. That high, real annual fee, acted as a governor on the system and I had access to several airlines clubs.

Fast forward to today, when far, far more people, with lessor financial means, are able to obtain this card because of all the various credit offsets. If everyone had to pay the actual full $550 annual fee for this card, I guarantee you that lounge overcrowding would be a non-existent problem. Given the rapid increase of cardholders and the cheapness to carry the card, is it really any wonder that most of the major airlines backed out of the lounge access agreements with Amex? There is simply no way they could handle the volume of potential users given how bizarrely cheap Amex has made the Amex Platinum card to carry.

I know to some I will sound elitist, but my wife and I worked very hard to achieve the financial success we enjoy and we value premium experiences (occasionally, not always). We do not have children and travel for joy, so paying a premium to escape the chaos of the terminal was a worthwhile pleasure for us. The lounges were a quiet oasis. Today, they are mostly obnoxious zoos, filled with people smashing into one another while they desperately try to consume as much food and alcohol as possible to ensure they extract the "maximum value" for their lounge excess.

The original purpose of the lounge was to provide an escape from the general terminal/gate chaos but when the club/lounge is every bit as chaotic as the place you are trying to escape from, that is a problem.

So, you might ask, how would I solve lounge overcrowding, if I were King? Simple, make lounge access exclusive/premium again. Supply and demand. Honestly, I'd love to see Amex raise the annual fee of the Platinum card (substantially, like say, $750) and do away with all the credits. Then put some actual teeth into the benefits. Go back to focusing on premium experiences that people have to actually pay for, with cold hard cash, not offsets and credits.

That my friends, would solve the overcrowding problem. Full stop. If you don't believe me, and you've never been in a truly exclusive, supply/demand controlled lounge, then you can't possible understand what I'm talking about. If you have been in one of the lounges, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Now, will this happen? Absolutely not, no way. Amex has chosen their path and has decided to join the mass market game. They would not be willing to take the hit of losing countless cardholders if they truly raised the annual fee and did away with credits/offsets, etc. Just not going to happen.

But, as the old saying goes, and one I agree with, if everyone is exclusive, then nobody is exclusive. Lounges used to be somewhat exclusive (relatively speaking) but that ship has sailed, they are now mass market experiences, like almost everything else. To use an old and famous quote, "We have me the enemy and he is us."

Regards

gmt4

While I agree with what you said, its a byproduct of more people flying than "back in the day." More people flying = more companies (airlines, CCs, etc) wanting more business...so to entice more business they offer more perks to get a bigger slice of the pie. Then, the perks get devalued because more people are obtaining them and using them. Its really a vicious circle. Call it corporate greed, call it a company trying to maintain its validity, call it competition, call it capitalism. Its likely a combo of all that.

So what Amex has to do is strike a balance between offering perks to obtain new cardholders and buoying its stock price, and paring back perks just enough to limit the exodus of fed up cardholders tired of product devaluation. They figure not enough of us are going to be so overtly turned off by this that we'll outright dump the card. New cardholders will never have enjoyed these perks so ignorance is bliss for them. I would support Amex making adjustments to make certain cards elite again. However the market likely doesn't. So we'll continue to see these 'death by a thousand cuts' type of constant small devaluations.

Its been said before: the only constant in the points and miles world is devaluation. Its not going to get better.

scubadu

Well said, and I completely agree. I think what's frustrating is that so few people in this forum seem to truly understand the dynamics of what is driving the devaluation and why it's actually going to get worse, not better (for many of the reasons you have spelled out). Honestly, at this point, Amex is basically paying me to carry the Platinum card (seriously). That model can't possibly deliver truly exclusive/premium experiences. However, I simply no longer count Cent Lounge access in the equation of whether to keep the card or not.

Completely agree.

Regards

Mediahound

I don't know if that's inexplicable. AMEX usually has minimum first year spend requirements in which they make money on merchant surcharges.

Visconti

I don't find it elitist. It's a matter of having the option to travel in relative peace and quiet with minimal forced human interaction. When traveling, I just prefer an environment with minimal human interaction; and, invariably, when necessary, the human interaction consists of and with those who understand and adhere to the house rules (etiquette), and the notion that one should, as a matter of courtesy, always be as unobtrusive to others as possible.

That's it.

It's the one thing that club memberships promise, and should deliver upon. The Amex lounges, aside from the Centurion safe spaces, has completely denigrated to a point where it has become completely antithetical to its original intention.

scubadu

That's not true in the case joe_miami is referring to. The Ameriprise card doesn't really offer a points bonus (per se, in the traditional sense) but rather waives the annual fee for the first year. So basically, people are just applying, cancelling after year one, then reapplying again in order to perpetually keep the card without paying an annual fee. This is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about in my rather lengthy post in this very thread, regarding why the premium experience will continue to get devalued (i.e. it's no longer premium, but rather mass market and available to all).

Regards

skywalkerLAX

Until now I've only seen some random quotes by bloggers without official sources. What does Amex say about this?

stc

What "this"? Lounge crowding? The Ameriprise card? FlyerTalk?

scubadu

In my experience, Amex is not terribly quick about updating/communicating information like this on the Centurion Lounge website. However, if you go look closely at a couple of those bloggers posts that you mention, you'll notice that some have actual direct quotes from American Express. So its likely they are slow rolling the information out to outlets they consider "travel media."

Given that Amex has already been widely experimenting with some of this access restrictions, do you have some reason to doubt the truthfulness of the posts you have read in this case?

Regards

Fenway1912

I don't even use the SFO Centurion Lounge anymore. Food and drinks are awesome but it's just way too crowded - the less fancy United Club is way more enjoyable place to be. I might cancel this card and just keep the new Gold card this year.

mikesyr18

I don't use Centurion Lounges, but I can't understand how people deal with the overcrowding. I agree with AMEX's new policy, which may need to be revised to be even more restrictive in the near future.

On the other hand, maybe it's their own fault because the underwriting for the Platinum is too low. The Platinum shouldn't be an easy card to get... Unfortunately it is because anyone who pays their bills on time and has a job can get one.

mikesyr18

Definitely true. As I stated in my last post, the Platinum is an easy card to get, and yet it provides numerous valuable benefits.

They need to either raise the underwriting criteria for the card (significantly) or give Centurion Lounge access solely to Centurion card members (and allow a limited number of guests for free).

joe_miami

Somewhere, Yogi Berra is chuckling.