2019 Has anyone actually received a Centurion Card invite (except UK)?
#152
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: PHL, LHR
Posts: 219
2017, I posted about it on that year's thread, including details about my spending on Amex cards, which was nothing to sneeze at. The only thing in my favor, as was guessed at the time, might've been the decades of perfect payment history and hardly ever a need to dispute a charge or complain about customer service. Maybe they just saw me as a reliable fee contributor, who knows. My first card was the plain ol' green card in early 1986.
#153
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 34,339
I think location must matter. They don't want to flood the market with these cards in places where they'll become too common, thus damaging the exclusivity factor. If you're in NYC and every Wall Street-er is paying for dinner at Le Bernardin w/ a black card it loses the exclusivity luster. The reality is, just based on wealth aggregations - if they have a quota of Centurions per year based solely on high level spends, then 98% will go to coastal elite cities b/c, well, that's where most rich people live. I'm sure they want to smatter them around the country so it logically makes sense that they may have different spend thresholds for someone living in Des Moines vs. someone in living in Manhattan Beach.
#155
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: RDU
Programs: DL(PM), UA(Silver), AA(EXP) Marriott(Ti), HH(Gold), Hertz(PC)
Posts: 2,667
#156
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 34,339
You could read some of the Centurion threads here over the last 19 years. But briefly if you spend other peoples money on your Platinum card, you yourself can get it upgraded to Centurion. And once you have it, you have it. Rich or poor, as long as you keep paying the annual fee.
#157
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: PHL, LHR
Posts: 219
You could read some of the Centurion threads here over the last 19 years. But briefly if you spend other peoples money on your Platinum card, you yourself can get it upgraded to Centurion. And once you have it, you have it. Rich or poor, as long as you keep paying the annual fee.
Unless I'm wrong, the facts are: 1) They seem to have a certain number of Cent invites per year - these invites seem to be curated and not spammed out left and right. And 2) No one really fully understands why or how these invites are allotted as - evidenced here - a lot of posters have totally different engagement stories.
So - that begs the question - why are there such different engagement stories/ criteria for a Cent offer? I'm sure there are dozens of factors involved, and saying location isn't considered at all seems to buck logic. We have one data point from a poster in a mid-tier city (sorry RDU) who claims he received an offer despite significantly smaller spends than other posters from larger cities who aren't getting invites (LA, NYC). Amex knows your spending patterns and locations and I'm sure they'd like to dabble the card out in places like Tampa, RDU, Omaha, Sacramento, Portland, Pittsburgh simply as a logical/exclusivity/prestige marketing tool. SInce none of us really know how these invites are curated, dismissing location as a potential factor outright seems to be hubris.
#158
Join Date: Sep 2011
Programs: Virgin Atlantic Silver, IHG Diamond, Bonvoy Gold, Hilton Diamond, AA Platinum Pro
Posts: 1,386
You could read some of the Centurion threads here over the last 19 years. But briefly if you spend other peoples money on your Platinum card, you yourself can get it upgraded to Centurion. And once you have it, you have it. Rich or poor, as long as you keep paying the annual fee.
#159
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: San Francisco, California
Programs: Amex Centurion, United Global Services
Posts: 847
I thought I remembered back in the day they look at what you actually spent the money on. If you were buying those $1 coins that were all the rage a while back or you are Bob in Accounting who buys all the company printers, that's not going to express you into membership.
Plus, Bob from Accounting probably doesn't want to spend $7500 that first year for membership. Having had the card since '99 I've had less than a dozen people ever "recognize it". Keep in mind people don't even see your payment method until the meal is over or you are closing out your tab or whatever. Really, almost nobody notices. A ski rental place in Aspen, a couple of restaurants, an odd retail person, those are the kinds of parting-of-the-seas responses I've received. One asked, "If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?" This is over tens of thousands of transactions.
The whole idea that the chef comes out to meet you with special dishes to try and the women swoon is just hogwash. If anyone really did recognize or care about the card (it seems to have fallen from pop culture now) then it would be as you were walking out the door. I get the "huh, I didn't know they came in black" comment occasionally, to which I reply "Yes, it's for people with really bad credit." One retail guy laughed and said, "If that was true, I'd have one!"
I like the service and the benefits are worthwhile to me but I'm not flashing it to the bouncer so I can get past the velvet ropes at a club. I was in Mexico City once at a hotel bar and a drunk American attorney across the way was holding his card up against his forehead saying "Where are all the hot Mexican ladies?" A proud American moment for sure. Ugh.
Last edited by DMSFCA; May 25, 2019 at 2:30 pm
#160
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Seattle, WA
Programs: Various
Posts: 2,155
Having had the card since '99 I've had less than a dozen people ever "recognize it". Keep in mind people don't even see your payment method until the meal is over or you are closing out your tab or whatever. Really, almost nobody notices. A ski rental place in Aspen, a couple of restaurants, an odd retail person, those are the kinds of parting-of-the-seas responses I've received. One asked, "If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?" This is over tens of thousands of transactions.
The whole idea that the chef comes out to meet you with special dishes to try and the women swoon is just hogwash. If anyone really did recognize or care about the card (it seems to have fallen from pop culture now) then it would be as you were walking out the door. I get the "huh, I didn't know they came in black" comment occasionally, to which I reply "Yes, it's for people with really bad credit." One retail guy laughed and said, "If that was true, I'd have one!"
The whole idea that the chef comes out to meet you with special dishes to try and the women swoon is just hogwash. If anyone really did recognize or care about the card (it seems to have fallen from pop culture now) then it would be as you were walking out the door. I get the "huh, I didn't know they came in black" comment occasionally, to which I reply "Yes, it's for people with really bad credit." One retail guy laughed and said, "If that was true, I'd have one!"
#161
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: NYC
Programs: UA GS 1.6MM, JPMorgan Reserve, Bonvoy Titanium & LTP
Posts: 159
#163
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 34,339
The whole idea that the chef comes out to meet you with special dishes to try and the women swoon is just hogwash. If anyone really did recognize or care about the card (it seems to have fallen from pop culture now) then it would be as you were walking out the door.
#164
Join Date: Sep 2011
Programs: Virgin Atlantic Silver, IHG Diamond, Bonvoy Gold, Hilton Diamond, AA Platinum Pro
Posts: 1,386
It's been mentioned countless times here, but again, Amex in the USA has no idea what your income is. They certainly don't know mine. And I've never even heard of an Amex financial review outside of this forum. When I got a traveling job, I went from spending a few hundred dollars per month to $35K - $50K per month. Nobody blinked. And then Centurion began and I was immediately invited. Again, they only care about your payment history.
#165
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: RDU
Programs: DL(PM), UA(Silver), AA(EXP) Marriott(Ti), HH(Gold), Hertz(PC)
Posts: 2,667
Warren Buffet supposedly carries just a green card. Pretty sure he gets better services than whatever Centurion dishes out.