ZeroHour

Unfortunately I have no idea what the exact criteria are, but I was never asked about assets - I doubt that this is one of the requirements.

Based on what I'm hearing from/about some people who got it, I'd say that $250,000 annual spend is not a requirement either - I spent somewhere between $150,000 - 200,000 last year and got an invite this May.

Hope this helps ...

P.S. I also had a Platinum charge card since 2002.

mark_f

Thanks for the info. I hit the $250,000 for the year and called them up and they told me that unlike the US there is no magic number. They said they look at a number of factors (which they didn't identify) and that you can't call to ask for an invitation, they only periodically go through the accounts and send by mail any invitations. But they said i was on the right track and to keep spending that much on the card haha.

I will give it some more time, but I may end up just not using my platinum as much anyways as it is an extremely frustrating card to use. My card gets declined a few times a month and I'm always having to call them even in line at the store. At first I thought I was using the card wrong, but I get no help on this from customer service

Basically my average per month balance for the last six months is $22,000. They told me they let your balance go to the amount of the average of the last 6 months. My month cuts off on the 28th and that balance automatically comes out of my bank account on the 21st of the next month.

For example say on July 28th my balance was $20,000. That amount will be automatically withdrawn from my bank on August 21st. But then lets say on August 5th I charge $10,000. Well my balance says $30,000 which is above my average for the last six months so they stop letting me charge the card usually getting declined at a store. I call them and they say that my balance is too high and I have to make a payment to reduce the balance. So say I make a payment of $5,000 on August 6th. Well, they take that payment off my August balance which isn't payable until September 21st, and they still take the $20,000 out on August 21st, so making a payment the day after you make a purchase and a month and a half before its due isn't much of a charge card at all. Particularly since the balance autmatically comes out of my bank account so i've never been late by one day or by $1

I got fed up and didnt make the supplementary payments for August, so I ended up only charging $7,000 that month and used a different card the rest of the month. (I had a few months of $30,000 so that made up the $250,000). Unfortunately for this month though I can't use my card again until the 21st of September because now my monthly average of the last six months went down significantly by the $7,000 month. They actually cut me off in the first week of the month unless I made a payment towards my October 21st Balance of $2,500 and they extended me $2,000 in credit for that payment. I used that room for a couple days and now thats it for the card until next month. They say I have to be charging even more to expand the room on the card, but when they cut off the charging ability, that makes it kind of difficult

I would think that it would be pretty rare in Canada to have someone charge $250k in personal expenses to an amex card in a year considering not that many places take amex here that they would treat me like a child and cut off my ability to use the card two weeks into the month.

YVR44

I got the invite yesterday. (It was a relief, because, as it was sent registered mail, I thought I was being served with some legal papers. )

I was a bit suprised, as I might spend $120K/yr between my Amex Platinum and Amex Aeroplan Platinum in the last two years. Travel, auditor bills, legal bills and other vendors make up most of my spend.

Suprised that the points are only applied at 1.25x. Hardly an incentive.

Can some one clarify was the terms of the complimentary second ticket are? Spefically
- Is this valid only on Air Canada?
- what class of travel (Executive, Latittude, Tango Plus) are eligible.
- are flight passes eligible (no, I am guessing. to bad 95% of my flying is on flight passes)

Doubtful that I would take up their offer. If I was travelling a lot like a road warrior and then maybe I could justify the $2,500/yr. But the $5K is a huge hurdle.

jarusoba

They have agreements with some airlines, AC is one of them. (AF, NZ, OS, CO, JL, LX, LH for some specific routes) that you get a BOGO offer. But this is hardly a deal. You would have to buy a full fare business class ticket to get a free ticket. This is usually more expensive than buying two discounted biz tickets. And the companion won't accrue FF miles. No flight passes are not eligible.

YVR44

Thanks for the info regarding BOGOF - you've confirmed my suspicions

yyz-kin

However....they just had a deal on where one could purchase the discounted bizo fare and get one free. Same price as on AC's website. I had some huge savings on this one. Unfortunately it is over now.

TRAVELSIG

5000 CAD initiation fee?
Good luck.
That is funny.

ZeroHour

They did? How'd you hear about it and how long was it on for? Inquiring minds want to know!

yyz-kin

I didn't receive a mailer but it was in the Offers section of the website. It was good for travel up until Sept. 15th and that was a heck of a good deal.

jarusoba

Yes, apparently there was such an offer. I heard from another FT member when I spoke with him and he was deciding whether to take up the Canadian Centurion card offer. I am not very pleased that they didn't communicate with me about this offer. Should one check the Centurion website everyday?

ZeroHour

Wow, this sucks - I definitely could've used it. Also a bit surprised that I haven't heard anything about it until today. I check the website occasionally - guess I should be checking it more often.

jarusoba

Don't know if that was in their website or not. The website doesn't seem to be very up-to-date.

yyz-kin

I should have posted when I saw it - I find that I have to check frequently to see what the current offerings are. Though it would be nice if they sent an email out..........

cdncent

It would be nice if they would send out emails, especially since the website is so slow. I found the offer the date that it expired.

Phrantic

I've just received my new Canadian Amex Cent and am curious as to how often they update their website offers. Anyone have a rough esitmate?