Thread: Official Amex Centurion black card guide!

Originally Posted by Cucumber

What they should do is just increase the spending limit on the Amex black card to something like 500k or even 1 mil annually. A requirement like that would surely weed out all the wannabes that have the black card but really shouldn't be having it.

It has been suggested. Right now they just have to meet the spend requirements once and thats it. There has been talk about making it an ongoing requirement in order to keep the card.

In order to keep the prestige of the American Express Centurion I concur the spending requirement must be raised. I would not favor making an annual requirement, but in order to qualify I would advocate creating a requirement of spending an amount far great than the $250,000 threshold.

Originally Posted by fffresh

In order to keep the prestige of the American Express Centurion I concur the spending requirement must be raised. I would not favor making an annual requirement, but in order to qualify I would advocate creating a requirement of spending an amount far great than the $250,000 threshold.

The threshold isn't difficult for them to reach. The difficult thing is to maintain it. The average Centurion member is spending seven figures through their American Express plastic, so it really isn't a matter of making it harder to get. The trick is whether or not they can maintain the standards. Too many people will put $250K on their platinum card and pay it off just so they qualify for the black card, and then they never spend on AMEX again. They just use it for the benefits and never pay for it basically.

Originally Posted by Cucumber

Wait to qualify for the Centurion do you have to spend the 250k on your platinum card of can you spend that much on any Amex card Like if you had a Blue card or a Delta credit card or any of their others and ran up $250k in charges would that qualify you?

Nope. You have to have spent it on the Platinum card and you have to have had it for longer than a year or two. I can't remember the exact qualification parameters since it has been awhile since I worked with that side of things.

We don't have many lending cards that will allow the card member to achieve a $250,000 spend in a twelve month period. They would have to have a line of credit of more than $20,000 and they would have to max it out and pay it off every single month. With that kind of spending they would almost certianly be using a charge card. We have Green card members spending a million dollars a year, but since they have no need of the travel benefits of the Platinum or Centurion, they just stick with the Green. If you truely qualifiy for the Centurion card then it is pretty likely that you are already carrying a Platinum card for the travel benefits that it offers. The jump in benefits from a green card or a blue card to the Centurion is pretty dramatic. It would be like going from a Yugo to a Maybach. lol

Originally Posted by Multi-Purpose

I'm looking at it right now and the one thing I don't see on this presentation (very cool btw) was the rewards on spending. Do they give 1% cashback on this card? I really believe they should do something higher on the platinum/black cards, maybe 1.25 or better yet 1.5% in points/cashback/rewards.

Nope, no cashback. If you want cashback then you have to go with a Costco card or a Blue Cash. The cashback is a neat reward, but it is really reserved for cards that have a spending limit so we can control how much it actually costs the company. Let's be honest here... We can't afford to give 1 or 2 percent cashback to everybody spending millions of dollars a year with their AMEX card. It isn't uncommon for charges to come through in the millions per transaction, so it just wouldn't be practical.

In that case what type of rewards on purchases do the Platinum and Centurion offer?

Membership Rewards, just like on most of the other cards. What kind of rewards in particular were you thinking they offered?