Airbornecic

Questions for Centurion holders:

1. After receiving your Centurion account, how long does it take to get your complimentary memberships for SPG, Hilton, Hyatt, Continental, Delta, US Air, etc.. in place? Do they come automatically or can you contact the respective companies and let them know of your status and ask for the account setup / upgrade?

2. Once you have your complimentary memberships in place, specific to the Airlines are you able to bridge the EQM distance between the gold and platinum at the 25k or do you have to start from scratch and make the full 75k?

3. Once you have memberships to the respective hotels in place are there any continuing requirements (mileage, stays, or activity) to maintain the respective status?

4. When getting the respective memberships are you given additional mileage / bonus earning opportunities at the same time? (I just received an additional SPG gold from Continental with 9000 bonus miles; 3000 miles for every 3 nights).

Thanks in advance.

DrivingRain

1. Yes, they say they can. But I didnt actually need them to do this service for me so I dont know if they could follow through on it.

2. No jumping off point. You start at 0 like everybody else, but you know you will have a minimum of Gold next year (assuming they dont change the baseline Centurion benes)

3. No, just so long as Cent. doesnt drop the program like they did for Hyatt Diamond last year.

4. I think so. Your treated like any other Gold member.

Supreme Leader of the Free World

1. The Car and Hotel 1-3 weeks. The Airlines 4-8 weeks? You can call CTS and probably get your "number" if you want to use benefits (like starwood). In the form you fill out you put any status that you have, and you actually sign up for the statuses you would like.

2. My understanding is you have NO miles.

3. NO that is what is great about the card!

4. I believe in general you are treated like any status holder.

Did you get the card?

Airbornecic

I'm getting the card sometime next week. Its a bummer that you cant fly 25k EQM and bridge to Platinum....

What do current card holders find to be the greatest benefit?

If Hyatt is out, did they replace it with another chain or just reduced the benefit?

Any rumors of increased benefits with the escalation in fees?

DrivingRain

What escalation in fees are you referring to? Maybe I should be watching this forum more carefully.

Hyatt went out and Priority Pass came in (along with the standard acces to NW, CO, and DL). To me that was a net positive, but others have different opinions on that one.

uhoo

Well it's definitely a negative, IMO. Practically every premium card comps you Priority Pass these days, besides the fact that you can simply purchase one, unlike Hyatt Diamond.

Supreme Leader of the Free World

Why do you think you will get it next week? Did you get a "invitation"? If so, I received mine the next day. The package was overnighted. So you should be getting it tomorrow ;-) Congrats.

monitor

Another different opinion here. As an East Coast short haul business flyer with long ago purchased lifetime club memberships and a C Card, the Priority Pass is virtually worthless. Internationally, on leisure, it is also of no value to us because we always travel in the front of the plane and have entry privileges to the airline lounges on that basis.
On the other hand, Hyatt GP Diamond was one of the C Card perks that we used frequently, and the drop from Diamond to Platinum is a gtreat negative to us. Hyatt maintains the highest gulf between its top and second levels of any of the programs and the treatment that you get as a Platinum GP member (for which which we qualified without any help from Amex) is significantly inferior to that rendered to the Diamonds. We miss it quite a bit and are seriously disappointed with Amex's failure to adequately compensate Hyatt on this issue in order to allow its customers to keep the status.

Airbornecic

CENT said 3 days processing plus shipping. I am upgrading from Gold business to CENT Business. Started reading about the card and had NOT received an invitation. Charged over 480k last year alone. Called Gold and sent me to Cent, said that I easily qualify. Look forward to giving it a test drive. I'm a little weary of the annual fee, but sounds like wit the increase in fee, there might be positive benefit changes moving forward. Can only hope.

DrivingRain

What fee increase are you referring to?

odysseusinrtp

My wife and I just took a vacation down to Orlando, FL. Had a layover in Atlanta and hung out in the Crown Room (membership due to Centurion).

Once in Orlando at the last minute we decided to catch a movie in downtown Disney. We went to Wolfgang Puck's before to get some dinner. They put us on an hour long wait list.

I called the concierge service at Centurion. We were seated in about 5 minutes.

My wife felt like a rock star!

Add in all my own regular travel experiences and it's worth every penny.

rifle57

Nice to hear a complement of Centurion experience, with so much bashing most the time. I have enjoyed many similar perks with card, especially last minute, impulsive reservations.

BeantownFlyer

Of course the same perk is available to Platinum cardholders; that was simply a Fine Dining reservation.

Supreme Leader of the Free World

Except that is the platinum concierge and you have to wait the hour and a half

atlantic

good for you