joe_miami

Which Centurions do you use? Most complaints about crowding seem to come from MIA and SFO, and per people here, the time limit seemed to immediately help at SFO.

This is a tiny percentage of travelers.

If this is the case, one wonders why Schwab and Morgan Stanley, et al., haven’t copied the model.

mia

Ameriprise was spun off from American Express in 2005. I speculate that their relationship with their former owner is different than that of other brokerage companies.

gengar

LAS and SFO. I noticed no difference at either even with the 3-hr policy in place (including one visit to LAS where there was not one seat available). SFO at least 3 times now with the policy in effect. Of course, this does not mean that the policy did not make a difference, only that I didn't notice a difference.

Nevertheless, pending how AMEX handles it, it is revenue guests unintentionally negatively affected by this change. That's not good.

mia

This maybe a reason they are making the 3 hour/departure only policy permanent, rather than trying to applying it only during peak periods. Staff may have been applying the policy only after the lounge was already crowded.

RichardMannion

icelandman2

My guess is that they'd go 5 or 10 annual guest passes. That way, they can make a claim that if you're truly bringing people into the lounge on a monthly basis or more, they should just get an AU or their own card, while still allowing for the occasional user to get value beyond themself.

icelandman2

I've noticed a huge reduction in crowding at SFO. On a personal level it's rougher for me since I fly AS and therefore have to do the T3-T2 landside jump, but it's a survivable restriction and understandable given the issues they're having. Guest access definitely needs to be the next thing they look towards though - restrictions should not be focused on the primary cardholder whenever possible.

mia

If crowding is a largely a problem at peak times, the passes would have to expire on a regular basis, or be subject to blackout dates. Otherwise many would accumulate them to use for summer vacation and holiday travel and create a peak.

icelandman2

I shudder at the tantrums thrown by anyone trying to bring in guests on a blackout date!

Seems like 2 guest max at a time on x passes with 1-year expiry, or just 1 pass per month could work. If I were running things I'd probably go with the former at say 8 passes, with an extra pass earned (as others have suggested previously) for each 5k spend on the Plat. Sound reasonable?

SP03

I don't think it's the guests that are creating overcrowding. If it's a guest who's always traveling with the primary card holder, limiting guests would just cause them to get an AU card which doesn't change the usage.

Most seating is designed for 2 people. So having 1 primary card holder occupying that table would not magically create more "space." It will just add more empty chairs that are unlikely to be used.

The only way to solve overcrowding is to limit access for primary card holders. Offer x number of access per access and more based on spend.

icelandman2

IMO even getting a guest to convert to AU is a big win for Amex, since they were previously getting 0 revenue for those same visits.

My fear is that primary-card restrictions would either have to include a massive "base" number of visits, very low "additional" necessary to earn more, or be super draconian. If we assume that the median Plat holder puts ~50k through annually (assume at least one other card, some split between them but not actively optimizing spend), it seems like it would go very poorly if they tried to deny members who truly do use it as a daily driver at those levels, even if that member travels/utilizes the lounges frequently.

You have a point on the seating set-up. Things are currently set up for groups of 2-3. Curious to see if seating is at all different for the new lounges opening for this reason/whether we could potentially use seating rearrangements as a bellwether for future guest access changes?

joe_miami

Yes, it would, at least in terms of how "space" is being discussed here. A second person at each table means twice as many people in the buffet line, twice as many people at the bar, and twice as much luggage clogging up the walkways.

SP03

My guess is that median is much lower than 50k. Lots of people are getting it for the benefits and lounge access (esp recently with blog promotions and new credits thanks to competition with Chase). I know big companies with traveling employees offer a credit toward airport lounge access that they can use towards either club membership or a credit card that offers lounge access. So plenty of consultants get the card purely for lounge access.

I'm not a churner, but I put min spend on the Platinum card. I think a reasonable number of base visit is probably 10-20 visits a year, and you earn 1-2 for every 5k spend. So at 50k, you would earn an additional 10-20 visits. Perhaps have a different limit for business card, but for the personal card, I think that's already more than what most people would use it for.

scubadu

And herein lies the problem... you see everyone here on FT likes to propose solutions that "work for them" and somehow magically believe it will alleviate overcrowding. Because for some strange reason everyone in this forum believes their use case isn't the problem. It's everyone else's use case that is the problem. Kinda like 80% of drivers believe they are "above average" drivers. See the irony there?

I see we are immediately back to the same tired solutions that many have been championing for years rather than acknowledging the most obvious way to alleviate overcrowding is to make the card a) more difficult to obtain (clearly they have precedence for that concept with the Centurion Card) or b) make cardholders pay a real, and higher annual fee rather than a "fake" annual fee that sometimes ends up very close to zero.

One thing I agree with mia on, and she has brought this up more than once, is that Amex probably largely doesn't care about overcrowding nearly as much as people here do. Of course they will do things to ensure the club isn't overflowing, but Amex has very little interest in making the club a truly exclusive oasis from the terminal. So several of the ideas people are throwing out, including me, would likely result in card cancellations, which Amex will likely try to avoid if at all possible and thus they will implement the most light touch guidelines they possible can, as slowly as they possibly can.

Regards

SP03

Yes there is one big communal table, but other than that, most tables are not that big. And frankly, most people would feel uncomfortable sharing them. They also have those small round end-table like tables for sofas. They would be way too small to share with strangers.

Amex is not trying to cycle people through like a cafeteria. They want to create an exclusive, relaxing atmosphere. Forcing people to share intimate space is not going to achieve that.