2023 Has anyone actually received a Centurion Card invite?

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Dec 12, 2023, 9:08 am

#136

LFR

Join Date: Jun 2021

Posts: 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangfish

It truly baffles me that people still go to lengths to get the centurion card. Many years ago it was something to strive for and clearly delivered value and prestige that was worth manufacturing spend for. These days it’s something we PAY to have. I am just too lazy to cancel it and having already paid the initiation I figure meh… I’ll keep it for now. But I seriously wonder what “benefits” the card offers in 2023-2024 that are worth going out of ones way to attain, especially given the current initiation fee and AF. It just ain’t worth it, people!

Coming from a centurion cardholder going into his 21st year of membership, there are a lot better things to spend your time and money on than the Amex centurion card, which is now just a shadow of itself.

Oh gosh... Do people truly not understand this yet?? Hopefully this once and for all explains to people why you SAVE money getting the Business Centurion (not the Centurion personal): A family of 5 travels to Japan for a skiing vacation. They want Premium Economy tickets on JAL/ANA that cost $2500 each. That would cost them $12,500 OR would means using 1,250,000 MR points (for non platinum) or 812,500 MR (1.25 x .65)if somehow they select that airline as their airline of choice. This same flight on the Biz Centurion is 625,000 points. That's a savings of 187,500- 625,000 points depending on the cards you own. Most people would value that as a $2000- $7000 savings. For the people that do that 2 times a year that's $4000-$14000 a year savings over any other card out there. I flew internationally this year to London and from London to Israel with my parents, wife and 4 kids. That was 8 people and the flights in economy could have easily been $3000-$4000 each. That's 1.6 million MR used on a trip vs 2,080,000 on the Plat which is over a $4000 savings.

For the people who regularly do something like this twice a year or for the people that spend roughly $25,000 a year in travel the card pays for itself simply by getting the 50% back rather than the 35% back on the biz plat.

In sum:
If you're someone who lives in a big Northeastern city and WOULD be paying for Equinox anyways AND you fly Delta often and you spend a lot on travel the card is amazing.
If you're someone who flies on non-Delta airlines and don't fly much the card is a bad idea.
If you're someone who is single and work pays for travel and you don't go to a gym the card is not good.
If you're someone who doesn't travel much and wants the card for the prestige of showing a different colored credit card to people it's probably not smart to get it.

SteveT, Statman and ark101 like this.