What Other Additional Benefits Would You Want?
This post is primarily for US card members. In light of my recent post on how to get your money’s worth from a Centurion card, I thought I would also pose the question of “What additional benefits would you want?”.
What other benefits, if they were added would make you feel like you were getting your moneys worth? Or even if you feel you do get enough value from the card, what are some additional benefits American Express should consider adding?
Additional discounts or upgrades? More airline ticket upgrades? More free gifts? Whatever you think, i’m interested in hearing what readers think should be added. The UK Centurion is going through a benefits refresh, say the US one did too, what should be in it?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
How about providing quick access to money for bail. This way the next time my son gets arrested and they slap a $20,000.00 bail on him on a Friday evening (just to piss me off)I can bail him out and thumb my nose at the magistrate.
I totally agree about the “Centurion-only” events. I get emails both from Centurion and Platinum and they are exactly the same except for the format. Why not have some truly exclusive events? And by that I don’t mean events that Circles buys tickets from third-party vendors for at hyperinflated prices.
On that note, Circles could use some improvement. I mean they advertise being able to obtain some random rare item from an Egyptian flea market but in reality can’t even come up with something as common as a Nintendo Wii (I tried - they couldn’t find one)? Doesn’t make sense to me.
Really, the only benefits I use extensively are the airline rewards programs. I say scrap some of the useless benefits and work on upgrading these all to Platinum levels.
Finally, I would like an additional PLASTIC CARD for US Centurion cardholders!!! I can’t comprehend why this is so difficult.
Absolutely NONE of the current rewards justify the annual fee. End of story. Not like they need to step up and add more, as long as people want to look cool with a metal card…
Circles couldn’t get me movie tickets - after 3 days of calling them back to check what the status was (since they never followed up with me as they assured me they would) - I was finally told: “I see they have them on fandango.com, would you like to go to that site and purchase them, or should I do it for you?”
Needless to say, I asked to change my concierge.
They should start by at least replacing what they’ve taken away:
1. free domestic companion tickets
2. SPG Platinum status
They should add NW Worlperks Gold status since you practically have that benefit with Delta anyway.
Certainly you should have special events in the top 10 largest metro areas. I live in Scottsdale, and there are NEVER *ANY* events here in in PHX, and that is a huge city - plus, there are tons of black card holders here. It would be cool if they had a special tent at like the barret Jackson or another hoity-toity event where cardholders not only got in free but there was a VIP tent for them to meet eachother and get some goodies.
Fewer voiceprompts and crap when you call. It is faster for me to call the restuarant for a reservation than to call the cent concierge! Here’s why:
1. call amex cent line
2. press 2 for concierge
press 1 for my guy (who has human working hours and isn’t always there) or 3 for an incompetant
3. spend 2 minutes validating your identity (we have this thing called callerID - USE IT!)
4. listen to all the extra crap about the greetings and this call will be recorded, bla bla bla
5. finally get to explain that you want a dinner reservation
6. listen to them repeat it
7. inevitably correct something they got wrong
8.
The card should let you choose *any* points program, not be stuck with worthless membership rewards. Paying for and having the best card amex offers should have some extra benefit, right?
I’d actually like to get a personal gift this year, not because I spent $1mm on my Cent card (I didn’t, I spend mostly on my SPG card for the better points - they should look at my total spend, not just my Cent spending.
Unless they make a change, this will be my last year with it.
Plastic cards are a must, that titanium thing doesn’t even work half the time (or you have to teach the barrista at starbucks the “paper trick”) - that is not high end, that’s dumb if it doesn’t work.
Get rid of Sony Cierge and replace it with something that is actually worth something… all I get is spam from them.
Wow, B. That’s a great comment, especially about looking at total spending across our cards. What’s the “paper trick?”
the “paper trick” is when the card won’t read magnetically (happens 65% of the time with the stupid black card) so you fold receipt paper around it, then swipe it, and magically it reads! works like a charm. Ask most Starbucks barista’s or anyone who swipes a lot of cards, they usually know “the paper trick” 
Here’s some more (Amex, I hope you are reading!), at least this is what I would do if I were the boss @ Amex:
1. actually solicit feedback from cardholders yourselves and actually do something about it.
2. have an executive team member call cardholder once a year and make sure everything is cool.
3. allow personal cards to have spending caps on additional cardholders - there’s no way I am adding any more additional cardholders to my account until this happens (you do it on the biz card already, whats the problem? you are missing out on fees from me!)
4. have a personal CSR executive contact for issues, someone that can handle it (I have several contacts, but it was like pulling teeth to find them!).
Just to rant some more (since I have no where else to go):
With the Concierge the customer verification is ridiculous and makes it not worth doing in most cases (I’ll just call myself for a reservation). They are in Canada so they are disconnected from our culture and are clueless (a concierge who’s never heard of the Cheesecake Factory?) Several times I have found better info myself. That they can’t do any travel arrangements or even help with travel and the travel department is incompetent is absurd. That neither they nor the incompetent travel department can handle the “free companion tickets” (which are not unique to Centurion and are so difficult that it’s not worth it) is not helpful and takes away the value. That the concierge isn’t integrated with Amex so can’t fully help (CS issues, etc.) stinks. As one of the major benefits, I find the concierge of little use and actually find the concierge of my Citi Premier Pass (VIP Desk). No offense to my personal concierge, she actually does a good job most of the time, but when talking to others when she or her backup are not there, I still have had lost requests, non responses, got disconnected and they didn’t call me back, etc. And there should never be a hold for a Centurion member, IMO - not for $7,500 in my first year alone.
agreed- the hotel benefits have been a joke for me - i have yet to see any benefit from them over what i had with platinum (which again was really nothing)…I say get us platinum/gold status on more airlines, get us back starwood platinum (that looked cool on paper at least), make it easy for us to Email a concierge - often I’m at work or on the road and don’t want to sit through prompt after prompt and explain things…I just want to shoot off a straight forward, objective request…this is 2009 and all…most importantly - send out a questionnaire to all cent card holders with a checkbox next to each ‘benefit’ that we get with the card that costs amex $ and ask us to put an X next to those items we either use or plan to use…amex may find some of these benefits that are costing them $ are worthless to us (as are probably 90% of the card benefits - to me at least) and then let us fill in a list of benefits we’d like to see with the card…then amex can prioritize where the fees go towards so we can get things that we all want rather than things amex things sound good…agreed about the sony program…lame
SPG Plat is totally worth it.
I email my personal concierge and the generic concierge all the time. My personal one is fast and thorough, the mass list takes 2 days and sucks.
D - I agree with you 100% on the survey idea, that’s brilliant.
oh yeah, I forgot one: over at Flyertalk.com - Starwood has no less than two FULL TIME employees that post on the forums to keep in touch with customers and keep them happy. If I were Amex, I would have someone to monitor and respond to the posts over there by the Cent’s - there are more there than anywhere else on the web (this site would be second). This is not difficult and it goes a loooong way to impress customers (they LOVE the “Starwood lurker” over at FT).
b - I believe Amex does have a “lurker” on flyertalk. Possibly more than one. They’ve mentioned that fact there before.
And by the way, today I received my monthly “special offers” emails from Amex. One from Platinum, and one from Centurion.
They are identical, except for the logo and the color of the background.
Why can’t Centurion offer genuine unique offers for the Cent members, rather than passing off the Platinum benefits and events as “Centurion Exclusive”?
Not as big a deal nowadays for me, but how about the Centurion helping you to get inside to the hot clubs in major cities? It can’t bee too hard for Amex to cut a deal with places like Bungalow 8 (used to be a hot club when I lived in NYC about 5 years ago) and the like so if you flash your card to the doorman you and your party are guaranteed entrance and without having to wait in line.
How about also always having a spot at the ultimate hard to get a reservation spot like French Laundry or Per Se?
Like others have said, I’m finding there isn’t too much of a difference in benefits between Centurion and Platinum to keep justifying the $2.5k annual fee.
what a great idea! lets make the card actually something useful beyond impressing the women at starbucks…show it at a bar and get past the line and right in (of course paying cover on the card or something)
Ken Chenault, you need to listen to the growing number of dissatisfied Centurion members. I reluctantly upgraded a few months ago from Platinum and between my wife and I, we paid $9,000 in fees. So fa I’m not impressed, the Cent is no better than Plat especially with events and concierge. I can’t even get them (Cent conc)to get me a “meet and greet” pass with a band that offers it through their own website! I guess the glamour of the metal card got me hooked, but so far, it’s not worth the membership fee. Come on Amex, Ken Chenault you need to focus more on your top (Centurion) spenders and stop worrying so much about other less productive revenue streams.
Hey B, those concierge workers bust their ass to satisfy a culture of silver-spoon trust-fund children. Clearly you do not appreciate your wealth, so keep bitching about the things it can’t buy you.
Wait a second, shh, shh, do you hear that people?
It’s the sound of a very very tiny violin playing a very very sad song about an overpriced card that you were fooled into buying.
The concierge service is weak at best. They dont even maintain a central database for national chains - ie, called to get into PF Chang and was Denied, Yikes. Called and tried to get into the Foundation Room, House of Blues in Vegas, Denied, Yikes…It seems as though they do nothing more than pick up the phone and wing it with whomever answers. I find them to be the most useful when I am driving and want something googled for me. I’ve had them literally read the headlines of my fav papers for me…Also, regarding Benefits. The new Centurion Fine Hotel Resort Guide is out. Benefits are identical to Platinum (unless staying at Ritz or Mandarin). Weak.
Heres an idea for everybody whos frustrated with Amex. Use the heck out of their concierge service to make mundane dinner reservation requests and gift suggestions, then use your Visa to pay.
@ b’s comment
about FT and starwood lurkers, im 99% sure theres a amex one on there but covertly, amex botched my birthday dinner reservations (made the reservation at the wrong location….they even called a 2nd time to change the # of people in the reservation and still didnt pick up on fact they were calling the wrong place) i posted about it on FT and a day or two later i had a supervisor from concierge calling me offering apologies and asking how they can fix it for me.
Colin: interesting… glad to know there’s a lurker - doesn’t seem like they are listening at the right levels tho.
C: thanks for the empathy. I answered the question. Did you?
I think the Centurion hotel offerings are pretty lame. The difference between platinum and centurion is zero in most hotels, and only very small in those hotels that provide “special centurion-only” benefits (like $50 credit, or “free tea”).
There should be actual centurion-only events and offers, rather than try and promote platinum events as being “special” for centurion members. I know this because I have both Plat and Cent - and the monthly special-offers brochure usually has the same “exclusive” events and offers.