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No Centurion offer after 10m+ annual spend and $5m in Amex savings account?

No Centurion offer after 10m+ annual spend and $5m in Amex savings account?

Old Nov 27, 2018, 10:54 am
  #16  
 
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Easily one of the saddest posts I've ever seen...
Why do you say that ?
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 10:58 am
  #17  
 
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Originally Posted by jblueflyer
I suspect they analyse the spend category as much as the spend amount in these cases. Also the spend amount is not much given this is a business account. The threshold for business accounts are a lot more compared to personal accounts.
For a business and not a corporate account? I'd say this is a pretty large amount.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 12:39 pm
  #18  
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I just do not think we should speculate more. OP's last post at FT was like more than 10 years ago and he/she has disappeared again after this post. This may be legit, but we can't tell.....
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 12:43 pm
  #19  
 
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Originally Posted by jblueflyer
Why do you say that ?
One, because I suspect it is fake, and two, if not, how sad that this person is so frustrated about a silly credit card, that he/she would share this.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 12:45 pm
  #20  
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Troll.....
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 12:49 pm
  #21  
 
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Where would you put it where it's insured?
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 1:06 pm
  #22  
 
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Originally Posted by choff5507
Where would you put it where it's insured?
Ha! 20 banks, I guess.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 2:08 pm
  #23  
 
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Damn, I thought I had a lot of MR points!


Nobody rational leaves $5MM in a savings account...troll
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 2:17 pm
  #24  
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Originally Posted by lax01
Damn, I thought I had a lot of MR points!Nobody rational leaves $5MM in a savings account...troll
And very few go from chasing $100 gas rebate cards to having $5MM in a savings account ten years later.
Unless you attended the Barton Watson School of Business Ethics, that is...
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Last edited by GFrye; Nov 27, 2018 at 2:42 pm
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 2:49 pm
  #25  
 
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Originally Posted by josephstern
Ha! 20 banks, I guess.
It doesn't work that way.

The FDIC insurance is $250k by type of account per depositor, so you can try to have a single account, joint accounts, etc etc at your name up to $250k. And some trusts, revocable or not (where the insurance amount is then more determined by the number of beneficiaries).
But again, just creating across multiple institutions won't work, even if your institution doesn't know, the FDIC basically requires the deposit insurance amounts to be calculated per institution per account type per depositor and sent to them regularly.
So they are going to know if your aggregated number is above $250k or not.

Anyway none of this makes sense, so you should not worry.
In case there is a real problem with an institution, if this institution is too big, the FDIC ultimate plan is normally to setup a substitute bank and transfer the deposits into that account instead of paying back "per se".
Because don't be fooled, there is no way we are able to pay $250k per depositor per type of account for everyone, that's an illusion.
Other countries often limit to $100k per depositor accros all type of accounts or so and even them are not certain they can pay back people in case of a real crisis.

Apologies for derailing the thread btw.

Last edited by Gasolin; Nov 27, 2018 at 4:13 pm
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 3:21 pm
  #26  
 
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OP: Why not plunk your assets with JP Morgan Private Bank and get a nice JPM Reserve Card? Much flashier than the Centurion. and you have great access to award travel through the Star Alliance network.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 3:34 pm
  #27  
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It sounds like there are no leads on why I have not received an offer, but to answer the other questions that came up:

-Yes, I was chasing $100 rebates a decade ago as a broke recent college grad starting a business. Ten years later the business has done quite well. I think the WhatsApp founder was on this exact forum before he became a multi-billionaire, so I am not the most surprising story out there.

-Why so much in a savings account? Well first. a large chunk of this money is about to go to the government for taxes, but beyond that I would argue holding cash in this environment is very rational, especially for someone like me who has 90%+ of their wealth in a single private stock. My ability to sell stock in my company indirectly ties to the NASDAQ. So, I like having cash because I will have a consolation prize if the world crashes since I can buy cheap assets. I don't really care about losing the upside in the short run. I also pulled money out of different real estate I own at a 3% rate to hedge against interest rates normalizing, and a lot of that money is here in the savings account. I pay 3% on the debt, and earn 2% in interest (and rising) and on top of that the real value of my debt is going down as inflation rises, so even with the ten year at 3% the hedge is paying for itself. If interest rates return to their long-term averages, I can buy treasuries that would pay off the mortgage debt. And I know they say no one can time the market, but I think the combination of an erratic president, rising interest rates, no more QE and a shrinking fed balance sheet sets us up for a big drop.

-If I am so rich why do I care about rewards points and the card? I think I am wealthy, but private illiquid company stock aside, not massively rich. I don't touch my savings and I live off the cash portion of my salary in one of the most expensive parts of the country. Once cheap always cheap. It is a fun game to play. I am very confident I would make money off the Centurion card, and beyond that it would be a cool employee perk that is not very expensive in the broader scheme of things. I am also curious about how businesses operate, and they are either very stupid for not giving me the card, or very smart since I don't look like a rich person and would almost certainly dilute the brand. My favorite store is Costco and I go on dates there with my wife to eat free samples.

-What about the FDIC limit? Yea, that is fair. If the world really starts looking shaky I would put it in treasuries, but I think the odds of Amex going bankrupt overnight without bigger signs of instability are close to zero. There are other things that are keeping me up at night much more than this.

I'm still curious if someone has an educated guess as to why I have not been targeted...it made sense when I had the personal card (no luxury spend) but not so much now that I have the business version.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 3:57 pm
  #28  
 
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Glad to see OP respond back and congrats to OP's success in the last ten years!

If I had to hazard a two-cent guess, I think someone like OP is not targeted due to lack of spending in key categories such as travel, shopping and dining.

For example, I have a good friend who comes from old European money but only has access to a trust fund that provides him with a fixed amount of cash per month. The amount isn't minuscule, but not outrageous by any means (think of it as an annualized salary of $300k or so). With that being said, he spends nearly the entire amount each month on things like dining at Michelin star restaurants, shopping at high end stores, buying J and F classes tickets to London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. and staying the Four Seasons. He was charging all of this to a plain old Amex Green card and after about a year of spending, he got the Centurion invite.

He didn't even know that such a card existed, but he is quite happy with it these days because his personal Centurion concierge does most of his shopping for him and books him his travel stuff. He tells me all the time that the card actually saves him money because now his bookings get the discounted IAP and FHR rates.
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 4:09 pm
  #29  
 
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Originally Posted by Statman

If I had to hazard a two-cent guess, I think someone like OP is not targeted due to lack of spending in key categories such as travel, shopping and dining.

With that being said, he spends nearly the entire amount each month on things like dining at Michelin star restaurants, shopping at high end stores, buying J and F classes tickets to London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. and staying the Four Seasons.
+1 (this for the personal card)

Not sure about the Business card though
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Old Nov 27, 2018, 4:16 pm
  #30  
 
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Originally Posted by Statman
Glad to see OP respond back and congrats to OP's success in the last ten years!

If I had to hazard a two-cent guess, I think someone like OP is not targeted due to lack of spending in key categories such as travel, shopping and dining.

For example, I have a good friend who comes from old European money but only has access to a trust fund that provides him with a fixed amount of cash per month. The amount isn't minuscule, but not outrageous by any means (think of it as an annualized salary of $300k or so). With that being said, he spends nearly the entire amount each month on things like dining at Michelin star restaurants, shopping at high end stores, buying J and F classes tickets to London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. and staying the Four Seasons. He was charging all of this to a plain old Amex Green card and after about a year of spending, he got the Centurion invite.

He didn't even know that such a card existed, but he is quite happy with it these days because his personal Centurion concierge does most of his shopping for him and books him his travel stuff. He tells me all the time that the card actually saves him money because now his bookings get the discounted IAP and FHR rates.
Pretty nice lifestyle on $300k/year.
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