One option the Centurion card holder has is to request a “stealth” green card. If you wish to shop at Walmart without advertising your Centurion status (or running afoul of their skinny card readers) you can use the green card, which carries the same account number as the Centurion card.
I’d be surprised if they care where you spent the money so long as you hit the minimum required. With that said, I’d imagine the people spending the required amount (quarter million per year? Half million?) probably aren’t doing it at Wal-mart or Target though it would be silly to assume they never set foot in those stores.
I do have one friend with one of them. Apparently their travel concierge service is pretty amazing.
I would bet a bunch of them do. People forget that Walmart brings in nearly half a trillion dollars a year. It’s not only rich people that buy stuff from there. Plus, many of the people who have centurion cards are not super wealthy; they are just small and medium size business owners. Think less Mark Zuckerberg, and more the guy who own a bunch of dry cleaners, or Burger Kings. It’s not too hard to spend 250k/year on business expenses if you have a reasonable sized business.
The reason those people get the cards is because of the benefits like free first class travel upgrades, dedicated personal shoppers, and dedicated travel agents. Just one upgrade or free ticket on an international flight would cost more than your yearly fee. Plus, Amex’s regular customer service is outstanding. I can hardly imagine how good it is if you are charging that much every year.
With all do respect, your friend should not be in wealth management if he doesn’t already know the answer to this question. Just sayin’
If the Thai in question is really such a big deal, they should already be banking at HSBC or some other internationally recognized bank with an international credit card.
AMEX probably has a debit card system, where you deposit $xxx and your card can charge up to $xxx.
As an expat coming back to America and getting caught in the same trap, I can emphasize.
Is that a reasonable amount of money for your average Thai to earn? Looks to be about ~9800USD, which is well below the poverty line.
It does matter. The spend needs to take place in “travel & entertainment” verticals, determined more or less by merchant classification code. There is also quite a bit of due diligence to make sure that the card is actually personal and that the proprietor is not just running a small business using a consumer credit product.
I’ve worked for Amex in the merchant side of the business for almost a decade and I have never worked for the Centurion group. But some of the stories of things Centurion cardmembers ask their personal concierges are pretty legendary.
OK, now you have to tell us some of those stories.
The most obvious weird requests are to procure drugs and prostitutes. Apparently there are a variety of ways personal concierges can get out of being pimps and dealers. Sometimes rich people just want to indulge some momentary craving, so they ask for oddly specific but not sketchy things. In the mood for a rare fruit harvested by blind virgins in Nepal with platinum sickles? Just ask your concierge. The concierges are very seasoned, resourceful people and have quite a bit of discretion over what they are willing to do. One crazy rich person called his rep and asked her to plan his son’s 500-person celebrity wedding. Challenge accepted.
The black card became so popular that the acceptance standards have gone way up over the years. The products are very lucrative for the business, but as you might expect, the customer service costs can be outrageous.
FWIW, in the case of the Platinum Card (and possibly the other classic cards), it can act as a credit card as well. Many purchases made on the card do not have to be paid in full at the end of the month. The interest rate is actually pretty lousy though. Something like 15%.
Thanks for the stories. The celebrity wedding request reminds me of Robert Heinlein’s short story “–We Also Walk Dogs.” The story described a company called General Services that would do everything from walking you dog to planning a major event. I always thought it sounded like a good idea.