New 2012 Centurion Benefits

[haydensydney]

Thanks Cruiser Elite - some of those figures are questionable ($425 for a car transfer and $500 for an airport meet / greet?)... There is also no mention of restaurant tables or access to clubs etc, mind you these dont really have a huge $ value to the cardholder - just convenience.

BUT when you do add it up and IF you take advantage of ALL of the above benefits, it does carry a certain level of value.

 

[exp1k]

• Hotel privileges and memberships: Preferred Golf Club membership, Hilton Honours Diamond Membership, Relais Chateau, Starwood Preferred Guest Gold Status....$550.
• Airline Privileges Program: Make substantial savings (up to 46%) on First or Business class flights with a companion on partner airlines. Single traveller savings also available on selected carriers.....$4,248.
• Centurion En Route: Enjoy private car transfers to/from the airport in Australia. A complimentary limousine is also provided when you arrive at your destination. Available at major cities around the world....$435.
• Centurion Fast Track: When booking your First or Business Class travel through Centurion Travel, a representative can be arranged to meet you at the end of the aerobridge where you will be ushered past queues at immigration and customs and then taken to your car....$500.
• Qantas Club Lounge Access: One complimentary annual membership, available to either the Basic or Supplementary Cardmember...$840.
• Fine Hotels and Resorts (FHR): Elite Tier FHR including enhance FHR benefits across various partners, including: room upgrades at time of reservation, complimentary room night, additional hotel food & beverage or spa credits....$1,145.
• Priority Pass (VIP) Lounge access: Two memberships complimentary for you and your Supplementary Centurion member Unrestricted access to over 600 airport lounges around the world, in 300 cities across 90 countries, regardless of what airlines or class you are travelling....$594.
• Avis Presidents Club Membership: Complimentary President’s Club membership....$508.

Figures quoted are from AMEX - not my figures.

What a joke. Most of these benefits I would value at $100-$200 max. Maybe Amex should survey Centurion members. They can then remove those benefits we value less than what it costs Amex and reduce the annual fee accordingly.

 

[RichardKopf]

The benefits, I agree with. Their calculations are a bit generous. I imagine most people will not get this value. The numbers are a bit silly.

Priority Club is near useless to me, and if you do have Cent and make use of it, you probably are not travelling in Y, anyway, so CX, QF, Priority, etc won't be used.

The hotel programs are worth money, but only if you stay in hotels frequently. The airline program is not really valuable for most airlines/destinations. Enroute and Fasttrack have zero value unless you buy air from Amex.

Insurance: great
Cashflow benefit: great:
Points: great.. but could be better if unlimited bonuses.

 

[equus]

H

• Qantas Club Lounge Access: One complimentary annual membership, available to either the Basic or Supplementary Cardmember...$840.
• Marco Polo Diamond: Renewal notice is not yet officially open to CardMembers as we are currently in negotiation with Marco Polo. Once this has been confirmed I will update you further.

I wonder if they have worked out that the Qantas Club membership is totally worthless to the Basic Cardmember if they are offering them a Marco Polo Diamond? I guess it may still have some value for the Supplementary member.

 

[RichardKopf]

What a joke. Most of these benefits I would value at $100-$200 max. Maybe Amex should survey Centurion members. They can then remove those benefits we value less than what it costs Amex and reduce the annual fee accordingly.

No.... don't reduce the cost. The purpose of Cent is not to be available to everyone. I like the high cost, but would prefer more REAL benefits.

 

[greenfrog86]

Thanks Cruiser Elite - some of those figures are questionable ($425 for a car transfer and $500 for an airport meet / greet?)... There is also no mention of restaurant tables or access to clubs etc, mind you these dont really have a huge $ value to the cardholder - just convenience.

BUT when you do add it up and IF you take advantage of ALL of the above benefits, it does carry a certain level of value.

Its a bit like some of the Platinum benefits really, where if you are willing to pay a lot of money for things then they will make it easier for you to do so (eg some of the airport services are usually more expensive than alternatives, if you were willing to pay $10,000 for a flight then of course $8000 is a bargain).

I have found that although I'm only a lowly Platinum card holder, I can't utilise many of the benefits to their fullest because I just can't afford to spend $300+ per night at hotels in order to get the 'free breakfast', however when I feel like a treat its nice to have benefits such as the upgrades etc but I can only really do this in Asia where the prices are lower to begin with.

With the devalued Platinum Insurance I'm now struggling to justify the card in the future as when I make a list of all the benefits they look great but if I put my rational hat on then I see that I get very little benefit from them...

Some examples

SPG Gold - have used once or twice when work was paying but didn't seem to get much in the way of benefits when staying at the Westin in Sydney. Find it hard to locate properties that are reasonably price in many places when travelling for leisure...

FHR - upgrade from lowest room level at FS Bangkok to a poolside cabana room which was nice but didn't knock my socks off

Small Luxury Hotels - booked one of these using Amex benefits but could have got the same using The Club which is a complimentary membership program of SLH. Have been upgraded both times, and whilst a nice benefit I wouldn't pay extra for it

Insurance - never had to claim, would have been nice with no excess but now I have to be REALLY sick to incur more than $250 of medical expenses

Priority Pass is useless in Australia and I'm gold with QF so would never use it anyway

By Invitation Only events - some seem good, some are insanely expensive and I'm not sure I want an intimate wine tasting dinner with a bunch of people twice (or three times) my age...

Travel Service - very uncompetitive for hotels and often really hard work to get anything decent out of them

So the big advantages I can see for Centurion are

Relationship manager
Travel discounts IF you would have travelled on those airlines and in premium cabins anyway
Better insurance
Higher level of points earning if you're pumping serious dollars through the card
'Bling' and 'gasp' factor of the card, but hopefully people like you for the person you are, not the colour of your card...

 

[Stephen65]

The only things in that list that I would place any substantial value on are the CX diamond membership, the insurance (especially now the Plat insurance is almost worthless) and the ability to get tables in good restaurants at short notice. The remainder are either worthless (e.g. QP and PP membership) or of pretty minor value like SPG gold and the various hotel and car rental statuses. The Amex Travel Service has never been able to get me (as a Plat) a better rate on either airfares or hotels than I could obtain myself and since I wouldn't ever pay full rate for F or J seats the 2 for 1 companion fares are of little value either. The higher points cap is nice (though I wonder why there should be any cap at all) but I can get the same points cap effectively by allocating some of my spending on a free Bank issued Amex card.

 

[Ricardo]

Its a bit like some of the Platinum benefits really, where if you are willing to pay a lot of money for things then they will make it easier for you to do so (eg some of the airport services are usually more expensive than alternatives, if you were willing to pay $10,000 for a flight then of course $8000 is a bargain).

I have found that although I'm only a lowly Platinum card holder, I can't utilise many of the benefits to their fullest because I just can't afford to spend $300+ per night at hotels in order to get the 'free breakfast', however when I feel like a treat its nice to have benefits such as the upgrades etc but I can only really do this in Asia where the prices are lower to begin with.

With the devalued Platinum Insurance I'm now struggling to justify the card in the future as when I make a list of all the benefits they look great but if I put my rational hat on then I see that I get very little benefit from them...

Some examples

SPG Gold - have used once or twice when work was paying but didn't seem to get much in the way of benefits when staying at the Westin in Sydney. Find it hard to locate properties that are reasonably price in many places when travelling for leisure...

FHR - upgrade from lowest room level at FS Bangkok to a poolside cabana room which was nice but didn't knock my socks off

Small Luxury Hotels - booked one of these using Amex benefits but could have got the same using The Club which is a complimentary membership program of SLH. Have been upgraded both times, and whilst a nice benefit I wouldn't pay extra for it

Insurance - never had to claim, would have been nice with no excess but now I have to be REALLY sick to incur more than $250 of medical expenses

Priority Pass is useless in Australia and I'm gold with QF so would never use it anyway

By Invitation Only events - some seem good, some are insanely expensive and I'm not sure I want an intimate wine tasting dinner with a bunch of people twice (or three times) my age...

Travel Service - very uncompetitive for hotels and often really hard work to get anything decent out of them

So the big advantages I can see for Centurion are

Relationship manager
Travel discounts IF you would have travelled on those airlines and in premium cabins anyway
Better insurance
Higher level of points earning if you're pumping serious dollars through the card
'Bling' and 'gasp' factor of the card, but hopefully people like you for the person you are, not the colour of your card...

Ditto to most of these from me as well, they really need to review the program in my view, or give card members the option of certain benefits with a reduced fee, but that would no doubt have it's own challenges for Amex. I think they should canvass card members each year to see if they are getting value and suggest alternatives, but then for Amex it's all about getting the money in from card fees and merchant fees.

 

[Stephen65]

I agree. For example, I don't think Amex are paying anything like $840 for a QP membership but whatever they are paying is a waste of money while the CX benefit is offered. Same for PP - I imagine the number of situations where a Centurion member with no airline status who is flying Y needs to use one of the lounges are pretty small. It's much more efficient to leave out "benefits" like this that are wasteful and which people can easily pay for them of their own pocket should they be one of the rare people who get any value out of it. Amex should concentrate on offering benefits that you can't easily just buy for yourself.

 

[exp1k]

No.... don't reduce the cost. The purpose of Cent is not to be available to everyone. I like the high cost, but would prefer more REAL benefits.

I think the "not available to everyone" is already covered by the invitation only selection. No need to do this via the annual fee. There is absolutely no justification why we in Australia have to pay so much more annual fee than members in other countries. I would be very happy if they dump Qantas Club and Priority Pass and the rather worthless SPG and Intercontinental status and reduce the annual fee by $1000. PP and SPG is already part of the Platinum card anyway, so no additional benefit.

Permanent CX Diamond or QF Platinum for airline status and SPG Platinum or LHW Unlimited for hotel status are in a different league and would add considerable additional value.

 

[Pumbaa]

Permanent CX Diamond or QF Platinum for airline status and SPG Platinum or LHW Unlimited for hotel status are in a different league and would add considerable additional value.

I for one would be happy to pay the $4300 annual fee for the benefits listed above.

- Better than Amex Platinum Charge Card Insurance
- CX Diamond / QF Platinum = Unlimited F lounge access
- SPG Platinum is without a doubt the best of all the hotel loyalty programs IMHO

 

[RichardKopf]

I think the "not available to everyone" is already covered by the invitation only selection. No need to do this via the annual fee. There is absolutely no justification why we in Australia have to pay so much more annual fee than members in other countries. I would be very happy if they dump Qantas Club and Priority Pass and the rather worthless SPG and Intercontinental status and reduce the annual fee by $1000. PP and SPG is already part of the Platinum card anyway, so no additional benefit.

Permanent CX Diamond or QF Platinum for airline status and SPG Platinum or LHW Unlimited for hotel status are in a different league and would add considerable additional value.

For the current personal Cent., one may ask to be invited, so it's not really invitation only. Obviously one needs to fill certain criteria.

I understand that Australians pay more than a few countries, but we also pay less than a few. The dollar amount, on its own, isn't a fair comparison - it's got to be based on the standard of living in the country it's offered.

Currently, Qantas Club may be purchased, regardless of the rate, so it's easy to offer that, long term. Status with carriers is much harder to negotiate, and carrys as many cons, as pros, for the airline offering the benefit. Barely does it increase sales for the carrier offering it - maybe for the alliance. CX Diamond is a nice benefit for Y travellers but its existence depends on annual negotiations. I doubt QF would sell Plat membership, but maybe since their premium route network is constantly diminishing, it will be considered, or maybe Amex will play DJ against QF to get one of them to offer Plat in the future. SPG has made it clear that Plat is to be earned, and I'm glad of that.

I agree that if it were truly exclusive, Cent would offer those, otherwise impossible to buy, statuses. Hilton is a small start on this, with a few extra points, internet, breakfast and tiny upgrades, on average, and this has a value of about $1000 to me, although the earned SPG Plat is of much higher value.

The conundrum is that is you really do travel a lot, or travel in premium classes, you don't need any of those benefits as you will earn the ones you use regularly, anyway.

I would love a rework of the benefits, too... but since we all value things differently, not everyone can be pleased.

If I have a complaint, it is the capped bonus points. Their value should, at least, match the cost of the card, so if capped at all, should be $900000-$1000000 in spend.

 

[RichardKopf]

I for one would be happy to pay the $4300 annual fee for the benefits listed above.

- CX Diamond / QF Platinum = Unlimited F lounge access
- SPG Platinum is without a doubt the best of all the hotel loyalty programs IMHO

These benefits would have value, but for someone spending heavily on their cards and earning millions of points, they would never have to fly economy, so those benefits are not so necessary. QF Plat would only help with redemption availability (which I would enjoy), but Starwood Plat, while it must be earned, is not really necessary if you have lots of points. Since last October, you earn status on SPG redemptions, so you can use Amex points, either through SPG transfer or Amex/Travelscene redemption to book suites, which include all the Plat benefits, except the extra points... all the while earning the Plat status without paying for it. After all, you don't need it unless you stay at Starwood, and if you do, you will earn it.

It's a roundabout.

 

[Foreigner]

I would love a rework of the benefits, too... but since we all value things differently, not everyone can be pleased.

If I have a complaint, it is the capped bonus points. Their value should, at least, match the cost of the card, so if capped at all, should be $900000-$1000000 in spend.

On two occasions, I didn't take up the Centurion offer. I would have, with a very high CAP or without CAP. The other benefits would have been icing on the cake.

 

[Diesellife]

Permanent CX Diamond or QF Platinum for airline status and SPG Platinum or LHW Unlimited for hotel status are in a different league and would add considerable additional value.

I agree.

I fly J & F frequently but CX Diamond definitely adds considerably value on top of it.
Better service (Even in J & F), better availability in redemption tickets and more.

At the moment, I'm more inclined to re-new, based on the CX benefit alone.

 

[rowdy]

I wonder if they have worked out that the Qantas Club membership is totally worthless to the Basic Cardmember if they are offering them a Marco Polo Diamond? I guess it may still have some value for the Supplementary member.

I took up the Qantas Club for the Supp card holder who has no status because I was WP at the time. As it worked out the Marco Polo offer came along when I lost WP status so took that up. At least the Qantas Club gives the supp card holder some extra benefits when travelling alone. The $840 is a bit OTT. I guess this is the initial application fee for the public. Renewals would be cheaper and they would be paying on a corporate deal so I guess the cost to them would be 1/3rd that

 

[pshepvic]

I took up the Qantas Club for the Supp card holder who has no status because I was WP at the time. As it worked out the Marco Polo offer came along when I lost WP status so took that up. At least the Qantas Club gives the supp card holder some extra benefits when travelling alone. The $840 is a bit OTT. I guess this is the initial application fee for the public. Renewals would be cheaper and they would be paying on a corporate deal so I guess the cost to them would be 1/3rd that

Not to mention the fact that they would only be paying a fee in the event someone takes up the offer - which I think would be a fairly small percentage of people. Anyone had any luck getting them to give it to a Plat supp card holder on the cent account? The terms actually say its available to supp card holders (plural) and considering you can only have one supp Cent card, that implies it is available to any one of the supp card holders on the account, not just the cent card holder. Not sure if anyone has tested this?


Sent from my iPad using Aust Freq Fly app

 

[3eef]

QF sent a receipt to me by mistake with the qantas club renewal from Centurion last year.

AMEX pay $285 for it... Inc GST

I took up the Qantas Club for the Supp card holder who has no status because I was WP at the time. As it worked out the Marco Polo offer came along when I lost WP status so took that up. At least the Qantas Club gives the supp card holder some extra benefits when travelling alone. The $840 is a bit OTT. I guess this is the initial application fee for the public. Renewals would be cheaper and they would be paying on a corporate deal so I guess the cost to them would be 1/3rd that

 

[ajca]

Hilton is a small start on this, with a few extra points, internet, breakfast and tiny upgrades, on average.

Tiny upgrades? As HH Diamond I have received many, many upgrades from the cheapest room category to ridiculous suites (4 or 5 categories at least). Maybe I have just been lucky!

The conundrum is that is you really do travel a lot, or travel in premium classes, you don't need any of those benefits as you will earn the ones you use regularly, anyway.

I'm not totally convinced by this. A lot of people travel a lot, and in premium classes, but spread this travel over a lot of different airlines and hotel groups based on what is most convenient / best product, rather than making these decisions based on what will get them status. This kind of traveller won't necessarily earn HH Diamond or OW Emerald based on their own travel so getting these through Centurion is a good benefit (and also just not having to think about it, or travel without status until they earn it).

Having said that, I find FHR to be the most useful and valuable benefit (way more than HH). If you are staying in FHR hotels you're probably saving AT LEAST $80 for breakfast for two every day, and the upgrades tend to be pretty damn god.

 

[11sjw]

and the upgrades tend to be pretty damn god.

Heavenly even?