My experience with the “benefits” is similar to others cited here – it’s mostly limited to the airline lounges. The concierge service, IME, was pretty useless – most of the handful of times I’ve called, I’ve gotten what sounded like welfare-to-work recipients, who took half an hour, in response to my request to deliver some flowers to a friend in the hospital in Hong Kong, to patch me through to FTD. I tried to use them to get me some show tickets in London and Las Vegas – worse than useless. I do think they once found and booked a massage for my GF on very short notice in a city we were visiting – my one hit.
Another thing to note about the “exclusive opportunities” is that they are invariably exclusive opportunities to spend a lot more money. I quickly learned not to use AMEX’s travel services/concierge for car bookings – they’d routinely show up with quotes for $100 on a route that a local car service would charge $55 for and a gypsy cab could be had for $40. And you’re constantly getting mailings for “rent a skybox for 16 for you and your friends at the [U.S. Open/Lakers game/Disney on Ice (not kidding)” that you could find at about 40% of the price on StubHub. If you are hobnobbing with James Bond on the Cote d’Azur courtesy of your black card, be assured you are doing so at bust out rack rates.
Plastic is made of polymers that include carbon atoms but carbon != plastic. Diamonds, pencil lead and tennis rackets are made of carbon but that doesn’t make them plastic.
I have not been able to find what these cards are actually made of though this site says “carbon graphite.”
Found an amusing video of a radio DJ who got the same “invitation” as the OP, thought it was the AmEx black card - he goes on and on about how exclusive it is then shows it to the other guys who laugh their ass off at him when they see it is from Visa.
I just had a flashback to the days when I was on an extremely exclusive mailing list - the people who got lots of credit card application forms in the mail, only to find that when an app was mailed back, you did not qualify due to lack of pre-existing credit.
Well, maybe not that exclusive.
Just once has anybody noticed I had an unusual credit card. Last week I was paying for a meal at the Big Boy and the cashier remarked that she hadn’t seen any of that type of card before. I explained they were no big deal, and she commented “Oh well, I’m easily amused.”
Many moons ago…I was the first of my group of friends to get a credit card. This was back in the old days when they didn’t hand out credit cards to college kids like drug drug dealers trying to get new customers.
All my friends wanted to use it or things like having computers mailed to them etc. They’d pay me the cash, I would order it and pay it off right away. This went on for about a year.
After that year, I was getting direct mail for buying AIRPLANES, $100K+ cars, round the world cruises and such.
It also meant I’m getting less than 15%…I’ve also had two black AmEx’ (and Iv’e seen a couple more from other servers, though one of them is a semi-regular) and they never tip more than 15%. I guess that’s how they got so wealthy?
Hell, AmEx card holders in general are worse tippers on average than MC or Visa…never found out why, though my theory is that a business card is more likely to be an AmEx, and often they are only allowed a 15% tip.
The airline lounges alone is a good benefit for business travelers. A lot of people think they are free for frequent flyers but that ended years ago. It’s $300-500 per year for most of the clubs.
The Amex Centurion card is itself a rip-off: there was an urban legend in the 80s about ultra-rare black credit cards with bajillion-dollar spending limits and the like, so Amex figured they’d cash in on the rumor and make their top .1% feel extra coddled.
I’ve seen a ton (well, a dozen or so) of the Centurion cards and the owners were all male and all douchey.
Correct. And the Centurion card is worth (from a cynical business perspective) copying – do some web searches and see the ungodly amount of breathless chatter about OMG how can I get it how can I get it? AMEX was sufficiently emboldened by it that they felt confident raising the rate from $1000 a year to $2500 in one step, and apparently the douches were still lining up for it. Their move to $2500 left a gap that the Visa people quite perceptively filled at $495 (which is right around the AMEX Platinum rate, thereby providing a plausible vehicle to poach some AMEX Plat people who aren’t willing or able to go the $2500 for Centurion but want the black prestige, whatever).
Anecdotal reports were that in the early days Centurion actually delivered on some of the concierge-ish benefits, and there are some nice fringe benefits like automatic gold status (IIRC) in a number of airline FF programs, if you fly a lot. Not sure if it’s been diluted. Also not sure if AMEX is enjoying quite as much success getting jackasses to shell out for the prestige in these times.
Depends how much you travel - supposedly the free upgrades to first-class can make it well worth the $2500 annual fee. (not that I would know first-hand)
When everyone who was able to get a credit card got a credit card, credit card companies came out with the Gold Card. This was a special card (it was gold in color!) that was only offered to “special” members. That way, when you whipped out your gold card, people knew you were special. The card offered all sorts of special features too, and cost a bundle. Bit-by-bit, more customers were offered gold cards, the cost of the gold cards dropped and fewer services were offered.
After everyone had a gold card and gold cards were no longer that special, credit card companies offered platinum cards. These were special cards because they were grey …I mean… platinum in color and were only offered to select members. That way, when you show people your platinum card, they knew you were special.
Now that everyone has a platinum card, it looks like black …I mean… carbon is the latest color. We’ll see the price go down, features stripped, and soon everyone will have a carbon credit card.
Rip-off in the sense of a copy, not rip-off in the sense of a waste of money. If you clear $250 large a year on a single credit card you’re probably not going to notice a $2500 fee anyway.
