2013 Centurion Benefits

[sparoz]

You have to eat quite a bit for that bonus. I reverted most of my business spend back to my business cards now as I often get more bonus points with the new points earn system.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

So is 750K pts still max earn before revert to 1:1?

250K at restaurants? 357K on flights accom? 750K on general spend? 1.5M on ATO?

Or has the that concept above 750K disappeared?

Jeez makes me feel like a right royal clown - I give them 5K for a card but really don't know top end of pts earn structure.

I do know Select at 1.33 KF pts amd WSQAMEX at 1.5pts have demolished my Cent exp.

 

[RichardKopf]

So is 750K pts still max earn before revert to 1:1?

250K at restaurants? 357K on flights accom? 750K on general spend? 1.5M on ATO?

Or has the that concept above 750K disappeared?

Jeez makes me feel like a right royal clown - I give them 5K for a card but really don't know top end of pts earn structure.

I do know Select at 1.33 KF pts amd WSQAMEX at 1.5pts have demolished my Cent exp.

I guess it's for another thread, but my issue with bank issued cards is that they won't give me credit limits like, Amex's comfort level. I run a business, but I'm not a tycoon, and banks won't give me a 550k spend limit, so I'm sticking with the 4 Amex cards, although I do use Westpac SQ, as well. Citi is not for me, though.

 

[sparoz]

So is 750K pts still max earn before revert to 1:1?

250K at restaurants? 357K on flights accom? 750K on general spend? 1.5M on ATO?

Or has the that concept above 750K disappeared?

Jeez makes me feel like a right royal clown - I give them 5K for a card but really don't know top end of pts earn structure.

I do know Select at 1.33 KF pts amd WSQAMEX at 1.5pts have demolished my Cent exp.

Probably not like that - the best way is to think how you are going to earn your 250k bonus points back as this was what was attractive about the Cent over Plat as it breaks the card even.

250k bonus points =
125k spend in restaurants, ie $500/day five days a week or
250k spend in travel, ie a $1000 room 250 nights a week or
a combination of both.

Really the only people who would earn as much bonus points as they used to be are people who travels more than 2/3 of the year, and possibly entertain clients most of the time. Otherwise, Amex might as well write the client off as they won't live long enough.

However, I must say the new Plat Business Cards points earning structure has definitely more than make up for the lost in my Centurion as we have a big spend in advertising and courier services. This than beg the question - is the Cent still worth it?

 

[Diesellife]

have anyone experienced bad travel agent/services lately? ive been getting rubbish responses for my request...

 

[sparoz]

It has been going on for a while. However, hopefully I found a good one for next time.

 

[cove]

I am losing my RM as an Amex Ultimate member with 3 accounts. Going forward only Centurion card holders will have RMs.
My spending with these cards will crash by July 21 when their fee for ATO payments becomes 2.9 % based on the 1.45% rate to earn 0.5 points a dollar.
Amex is handing my business to Westpac Black Altitude.

 

[R36snowbound]

The centurion card is becoming harder and harder to justify.

I have told my RM that it is crazy to offer your most valuable "members" the most exclusive card on the market but not offer the most exclusive benefits available in the market. I currently hold a AMEX Centurion card and a Citibank Visa Signature card, combined annual spend of around $800,000. More and more of my spend is heading to Citibank.

On average, I book 3-5 business class airfares to Europe / Japan each year through AMEX travel team and their service has been fantastic. I also book 3-4 domestic airfares (including accomodation) with AMEX each year and have also experinced good service and value, but $5,000 woth..?

Whlst Citibank also offers a conceierge/ travel team, I have never used them as I have been very happy with AMEX service but may need to try them out if AMEX continue to enhance the Centurion card benefits.

The Cathay Pacific status is good but I would prefer a similar agreement to be in place with either Qantas or Virgin.

Changes to the AMEX rewards point structure has cost me more than 120,000 points this year. Constant staff changes at AMEX have also lowered their service standards and I have noticed that a few experinced consultants that I liked dealing with are no longer there.

My RM has also told me that they have had a lot of Centurion card cancellations over the last 6 months and they are expecting the drop in membership numbers to continue.

 

[Pukka]

The centurion card is becoming harder and harder to justify.

I have told my RM that it is crazy to offer your most valuable "members" the most exclusive card on the market but not offer the most exclusive benefits available in the market. I currently hold a AMEX Centurion card and a Citibank Visa Signature card, combined annual spend of around $800,000. More and more of my spend is heading to Citibank.

On average, I book 3-5 business class airfares to Europe / Japan each year through AMEX travel team and their service has been fantastic. I also book 3-4 domestic airfares (including accomodation) with AMEX each year and have also experinced good service and value, but $5,000 woth..?

Whlst Citibank also offers a conceierge/ travel team, I have never used them as I have been very happy with AMEX service but may need to try them out if AMEX continue to enhance the Centurion card benefits.

The Cathay Pacific status is good but I would prefer a similar agreement to be in place with either Qantas or Virgin.

Changes to the AMEX rewards point structure has cost me more than 120,000 points this year. Constant staff changes at AMEX have also lowered their service standards and I have noticed that a few experinced consultants that I liked dealing with are no longer there.

My RM has also told me that they have had a lot of Centurion card cancellations over the last 6 months and they are expecting the drop in membership numbers to continue.

I think the moment they enhanced the points scheme the writing was on the wall in terms of value.

I've always liked the travel team and the lifestyle team are good if you want to book a good restaurant,

I dropped to plat and I've just gone back to cent ; is it worth it? Probably not but the insurance is way better than plat and there are other perks which are good but in reality unless you travel all the time it's hard to justify but people will still pay it because its only about $4k more than plat and in the general scope of things that's not a huge amount unless you compare it to the price of the card in other countries that is !!

 

[wafliron]

I have told my RM that it is crazy to offer your most valuable "members" the most exclusive card on the market but not offer the most exclusive benefits available in the market. I currently hold a AMEX Centurion card and a Citibank Visa Signature card, combined annual spend of around $800,000. More and more of my spend is heading to Citibank.

With that sort of spend, I hope you mean you have a Visa Signature "level" card with Citibank - i.e. Citibank Select - and not the "Citibank Signature" card?

 

[R36snowbound]

Hi Wafilron,

Yes, its the Citibank Visa Select Signature card, $700 per year membership fee.

Apart from the Citibank service experince, I am very happy with the card, especially with 5x points earned on overseas transactions.

AMEX must be losing customers to Citibank head over foot. If I was in the market for one card only, it would be the Citibank Visa Select Signature card over the AMEX Platinum Charge card any day, better points program and better acceptance.

 

[cove]

With Citi Select (non Qantas points) that can go to Kris Flyer and other places you pay 3.3% fee on international expenses to earn a net 3.33 points (5 gross points redeem at 3.33 to Kris Flyer). Effectively you are buying points at one cent each so as long as you don't redeem them for economy flights you should end up enjoying the result.

 

[vantage03]

Totally agree with a lot of the negative sentiment towards Centurion in this thread over recent months.

The biggest issue for me, which was being talked about here earlier in the year, is the false advertising of their services and benefits. Specifically, their "free night" offers at various hotels are basically fraud. They are NEVER available, and my RMs will even tell you that they can never get availability. Management doesn't seem to understand that this is a big issue for them, if customers in my business were calling up and using words like "fraud" and "misleading", alarm bells would go off. If I had the time and energy, which I don't as I have a business to run, I would take evidence of their misleading advertising to the regulators.

My honest opinion from a corporate point of view is that the Exec is in charge of Marketing and Comms is simply too weak for the role. Customer Services similarly 'don't get it'.

Whilst renewing my card isn't sending the right signal to Centurion, they have definitely heard my complaints loud and clear.

On the bright side, I did receive my third complimentary year of CX Diamond in the mail recently. Not that it matters as I'm OWE anyway and book my travel directly with QF..!

 

[RichardKopf]

I also had issues redeeming gifted hotel nights, in the past, but that hasn't been the case in the last 2 years. When I found it impossible (no availability for a 6 month period) i asked for points, to the value of the room cost plus taxes at an exchange rate of 1 cent. when the Starwood promo was on for SBS card a couple of years ago, I tried to redeem at W Koh Samui and negotiated a 60000 point bonus in lieu of the unavailable hotel gift.

My biggest issue has been that the very few member Only events I'm interested in are unavailable within 5 mins of receiving notification. I consider this false advertising.

I do not travel much, for business, and only travel on redemption tickets, so I find the CX Diamond/OWE very useful. QF Club has no value to me as I always redeem in premium classes. Neither do any of the other flight travel benefits offer anything, as they are already included as class-of-travel benefits.

Since VA allows status credit earn on redemptions and family pooling, it's easy to earn VA plat with a few domestic weekends in J, and they offer the Hilton Plat and Hertz Pres, too, so not much value from Cent, there either.

Small losses like Westfield Valet parking are a pain. I used them, as I would use airport valet, if it was ever offered.

I don't use PC Plat, very rarely HH Diamond (it gets free exec club and internet and the odd upgrade, but I'm usually tied to SPG trying to maintain an ambassador, so 100 nights go to Starwood before I look elsewhere.

The main value in Cent, for me, is the 375000 bonus points (most spend is on travel), the free bottle of wine, whether it's for marketing purposes, or otherwise, the free hotel night and the odd free inclusion at restaurants. These, just about make up the cost of the card. The rest is covered by errors on behalf of service providers (e.g.: St Regis Florence gave us the benefits of SPG plat, which I hold, plus the benefits of Amex FHR, when they saw the card, including some value in the restaurant, even though I had booked with SPG points), and my wife's pleasure in showing off to her friends in other countries, where the card is seen as a big deal. ( A group of Japanese Amex marketers at a mall in Yokohama thought I must have been a rock star, when they saw the card).

I also received CX Diamond renewal, yesterday, which helps to get good seating on redemption tickets, if nothing else.

If I may add a wishlist:

- I like valet parking. Pronto at SYD charges $20 on top of normal rates for valet. it would be nice to have this included for Cent, as well as adding Westfield back in, or some deal with Secure or Wilson for city parking.
- Star Alliance Gold, with any carrier, would be great. I prefer SQ and TG, but will cop any.


Sorry for the ramble... I wrote as it came to me.

 

[wafliron]

Yes, its the Citibank Visa Select Signature card, $700 per year membership fee.

Glad to hear it - just thought I'd double-check for your sake!

AMEX must be losing customers to Citibank head over foot. If I was in the market for one card only, it would be the Citibank Visa Select Signature card over the AMEX Platinum Charge card any day, better points program and better acceptance.

Agree 100% - if I could have only one credit card (out of the entire market, not just in contrast to Amex Plat Charge) I would choose the CB Select without hesitation.

 

[sparoz]

I have an email today from my RM that Emirates has become a partner as of today but we are still not be able transfer points to Skywards program yet. We will need to enrol to the program and we should be able to start enrol today through the website, but there is currently no further information available apart from the Emirates logo on the website. Platinum would be fantastic, but looks like Emirates have business lounge access from Silver so we can only wait and see when information is available. Invitation is being sent out to us.

 

[blessed11]

I have an email today from my RM that Emirates has become a partner as of today but we are still not be able transfer points to Skywards program yet. We will need to enrol to the program and we should be able to start enrol today through the website, but there is currently no further information available apart from the Emirates logo on the website. Platinum would be fantastic, but looks like Emirates have business lounge access from Silver so we can only wait and see when information is available. Invitation is being sent out to us.

Finally some positive news for the Centurion program. Did your RM hint at Emirates becoming a points transfer partner only or Centurion members getting fast-track status?

I don't think any of the UAE Centurion programs offer Emirates Gold/Platinum as a benefit so I would be surprised if we got it on the Oz program.

 

[sparoz]

Finally some positive news for the Centurion program. Did your RM hint at Emirates becoming a points transfer partner only or Centurion members getting fast-track status?

I don't think any of the UAE Centurion programs offer Emirates Gold/Platinum as a benefit so I would be surprised if we got it on the Oz program.

It is listed under lounge partners so I would assume there would be some sort of fast-track status as a minimum. My RM clearly indicated that they are not yet a transfer partner - and quoted from my RM "please note however as yet they are not a transfer partner". The only way to transfer from Amex points to Skyward is through SPG and of course at not very good rate.

 

[blessed11]

It is listed under lounge partners so I would assume there would be some sort of fast-track status as a minimum. My RM clearly indicated that they are not yet a transfer partner - and quoted from my RM "please note however as yet they are not a transfer partner". The only way to transfer from Amex points to Skyward is through SPG and of course at not very good rate.

Just logged into mobile site and searched lounge partners. Sure enough Emirates is listed. When you click for more info it states:

"CONDITIONS
Centurion member must be enrolled as a Gold member in the Emirates Skywards programme and be traveling onwards on an Emirates flight in order to access the lounge."

Based on that, looks site we'll be getting Gold Emirates soon.

 

[blessed11]