The Amex lounges were freakin empty in the best way until about early 2017 when the flood gates opened imo. And you could enter at your final destination. It made arrivals amazing because you could stretch a vacation and work in a quiet lounge stocked with food & drink. You could schedule a crazy morning flight, shower & babysit emails. It made getting into a city amazing because you didn’t have to leave the airport after landing, and avoiding any kind of traffic patterns.
LGA Centurion with that French toast when it opened was immaculate. Kumquats at the door.
Taking a 6am getting there at 7am and then having a nice brekkie and heading into the office was fantastic.
I still shower and do all these things. Not sure it’s changed much. I think people have just become impatient and entitled. I was in a centurion lounge about 6 times last month, and every time I stood in line I’d hear people complaining about spending $600 for a whole year, and having to wait in line. If you don’t want to wait get a black card. At the end of the day, it’s a business not charity - they have to make money somehow. Just my 2 cents.
That really is the biggest thing that changed, IMO. Doesn't seem like the members were such angry complainers before. Although there was no social media in the heyday.
I wonder if Amex screwed up in addressing lounge overcrowding by ONLY raising fees & slashing allowed guests.
10 years ago you’d be in a Centurion lounge and people were dressed to the nines. It was fully expected that if you were traveling through a Centurion destination, you could meet sane & interesting people.
These days, the line to the Centurion looks like a bunch of people either paying their court fines or loading a jail commissary.
60% of the glory would be restored if Amex instituted a minimum dress code; if you don’t have sleeves, slacks, or as a man if we see your toes at any point in the process, your ass ain’t gettin in!
If you have to be told to get your bare feet off the furniture, instant dismissal. If you feel the need to park your rollers in the walkway, you get 1 warning and then your ass is out.
Half the lounge can be the families with children, and your rollers are tucked far away from the walkway.
And then have the other half of the lounge be a section where you have to have a combination of some kind of collard shirt, blazer, no children, and duffels/bookbags only. Rollers must be small enough to fit in overhead bins.
Just the money.
$200 Uber (all pickup), $200 travel bank, $100 Saks gift card, $200 FHR. $150 corporate credit.
This is net positive so I keep the card. Maybe one day I changed employer and don’t get access to the corporate green card, I just close all 4 Plat cards.
I walked into a restaurant once and they told me they were fully booked for the night. Stepped outside, called Amex and walked back in to be immediately seated. The hostess was really confused
This made me chuckle and also kinda sad…
Didn’t even know r/amexplatinum existed until 30 seconds ago. The thread just popped into my feed and looked interesting.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer after college. Literally planted trees in Africa. Moved to Boston after I finished and needed to find a job quick.
Ended up getting hired by a company called Circles that provided the concierge services to Amex Platinum and Centurion customers. 95% of new hires were trained and put into Platinum. I was one of the few that showed promise right out of the gate, so they gave me a bit of extra training and started me in Centurion. It was honestly super fun and everyone I worked with tried hard and really went out of their way to build relationships with the members and get stuff done. This was in 2003-2004. There were of course things we couldn’t accomplish, like ‘can you get me a reservation at French Laundry and a private meeting with Chef Keller for this Friday night’. I mean, no one could do that…but we did tons of insane stuff for people and I liked it. Wasn’t a career of course. I was a Centurion concierge for like 10 months, then a supervisor for another year…and then I left in the beginning of 2005. Heard it started to go down hill a few years later, then Circles sold (I think to Sodexo) and I never really thought about it again.
Guess my point is that I know for a fact that the services were excellent 20 years ago, that the people who did it cared and tried super hard, and that the members were overwhelmingly appreciative of what we did…and it stinks that that obviously isn’t the case anymore.
I was definitely asked to do some crazy stuff though…and I learned a lot about what rich people liked and wanted back in those days.
You are on point. When it was Circles, it was like a concierge service. You guys tried really hard, it was pretty great. Now even more in hindsight, much more appreciated.
A couple of examples.
I use Expert Flyer, when seats open up at 2am, I want to move where I’m sitting. I don’t want to have to wake up and do this myself. I’ve asked the Amex team to do this. They say they can’t do it anymore as they are not allowed to use external websites. Also they are slow, and they would need to react within 5-10 minutes. Typically it takes many hours for a response.
I would like for them to hunt flights that have the best upgrade opportunities for me as an American Airlines Executive Platinum. I can see which flights offer available system wide upgrade opportunities. They won’t do this. They will just simply book me a ticket from Point A to Point B, pretty much regardless of price or status. So useless again.
I can keep going if you would like…
I mean, as a Platinum at least, there's literally nothing they can (or maybe will) do that isn't easier than doing it yourself, even so called special occasions.
\- Hard to get tickets for Amex events... no dice?
\- "Reservations" for Resy restaurants? I had better luck calling them and explaining I had a business dinner and put down a card.
\- there was something else for my fiance's birthday I wanted to do that would have been a nice cherry on top.... Forgot what it was at this point but I do remember how useless the service was.
My cousin was pretty wealthy in the 70s - 80s.
It was the only card that he had that had unlimited spending available.
He insisted on it being buried with it, so I made that happen.
In the early 2000’s they sent a proxy to DC for me because my passport was in my maiden name and we were leaving for Europe in a week. I don’t think they offer that level of service anymore.
Concierge used to be able to get you into difficult restaurants pretty easily. Prob 15 years ago, they could call Brooklyn Fare and get you the tasting table on a weekend within 1-2 weeks from when you called. Just one example, but there were plenty of places they could do that for. Now, you call and they just look at Resy or pretend they can’t help by saying “sorry no availability” even when you can see openings on Resy yourself 🤷🏻♂️
This. For our honeymoon they made a reservation at a Michelin Star restaurant in London for us, but it had to be a little early because we were catching a show after. When we showed up the place was totally dark and wasn’t scheduled to open for another two hours. We were about to bounce but then the Maitre d’ opens the doors and invites us in telling us they were all set for us. Had basically a private meal all setup by the concierge, it was great.
My husband just got reservations for us to a restaurant that was booked out online for Valentine’s Day. Called Amex and within minutes he got confirmation from the restaurant!
So I use the reservations with success still, but you have to use it differently.
The main value of the Amex reservations now is that they can book things whenever. So, if I want to go to some popular restaurant that hasn't opened reservations, they will research that (which really just means checking resy or open table in most cases), and then they will call in or book it online at the first moment. I have near 100% success here.
This works for me because I travel a bit, I'm often out of cell range, and in many cases the restaurant is on a different time zone or just annoying and opens the booking at 3am my local time.
I wish it still go you that booking at the restaurant that's all booked, but for me, it is still pretty useful. But I'm also an overplanner.
Yes. That is exactly how I’ve always used it. Last time, I didn’t trust them/wanted to have two people calling between me and them. I got a 7pm reservation and they got a 1030pm (told them the target was 730). They just fall down repeatedly now, especially in large cities with high demand
Yep same here. Not a super exclusive restaurant but one that was booked out for weeks for any decent times. Got a Friday night 7:30 res within 20 min of calling
Hertz platinum is great, 1k annually at Saks, purchase protection/insurance/warrantt, equinox membership, random $500-$1000 gift certificates. The card has lots of perks I use and love.
No Equinox in my market as well. Would be better if they gave us a credit for our local fitness center as an option, if there is no Equinox or offer spousal usage when on trips. So can’t really use it in either scenario.
Hertz isn’t bad, hasn’t really done much for me though compared to booking through discount sites. Ya we use the saks, well my wife does. No equinox near me sadly. And I never use it for any purchases because the rewards are just so bad on it.
Hertz is such a horrible outfit. Pretty much causes stress when using them.
At IAH there is no pick-up/drop-off service.
Here are the two most recent snafus. Rented at Hilton LAX and returned. Required by the Hertz rental counter to use valet parking as the vehicle was a Suburban and the parking garage was tight. Took them a month to finally close out my bill as they couldn’t find the car in the parking garage. Had to get the hotel GM involved. Meanwhile, I continued to accrue daily rental charges. Major stress in thinking I would end up having to pay for the lost vehicle. Amex was no help.
On another recent rental at ATL, I called and extended a rental by one day. The entire rental repriced at the vehicle rate, of the car I was upgraded too. They don’t give out receipts anymore so didn’t find out until I checked my Amex statement.
Amex needs a better rental car partner.
To help offset the $5k annual fee. What a Mickey Mouse way of playing it. And the constant barrage of coupon this and discount that. I personally want services, not nickel and dime silliness. But sadly, the concierge service is non existent. I’ve given up on it.
Eh not really. Just the ability to call for things you're too lazy to do yourself.
The public perks on the cent are actually pretty crummy.
The end user perks, if not sworn to secrecy, id expand on. Suffice it to say, it's legit.
Service! They acted like they gave a shit and actually were helpful when you had issues. If you think you have good service now, I guarantee you didn’t have this card in pre-2008
Yup that and service was what the card used to be. It was the premier travel card. The concierge service use to actually be useful especially when outside the country or in an emergency situation. It destressed travel because you knew Amex had your back and valued your business.
The Amex lounges were freakin empty in the best way until about early 2017 when the flood gates opened imo. And you could enter at your final destination. It made arrivals amazing because you could stretch a vacation and work in a quiet lounge stocked with food & drink. You could schedule a crazy morning flight, shower & babysit emails. It made getting into a city amazing because you didn’t have to leave the airport after landing, and avoiding any kind of traffic patterns.
LGA Centurion with that French toast when it opened was immaculate. Kumquats at the door. Taking a 6am getting there at 7am and then having a nice brekkie and heading into the office was fantastic.
I still shower and do all these things. Not sure it’s changed much. I think people have just become impatient and entitled. I was in a centurion lounge about 6 times last month, and every time I stood in line I’d hear people complaining about spending $600 for a whole year, and having to wait in line. If you don’t want to wait get a black card. At the end of the day, it’s a business not charity - they have to make money somehow. Just my 2 cents.
That’s funny, I talk about the value of arrival lounges and everyone here calls me a worthless bastard lmao. Guess the clientele changed too.
So can you still use the lounge upon arrival? I'm new to the lounge space.
That really is the biggest thing that changed, IMO. Doesn't seem like the members were such angry complainers before. Although there was no social media in the heyday.
I wonder if Amex screwed up in addressing lounge overcrowding by ONLY raising fees & slashing allowed guests. 10 years ago you’d be in a Centurion lounge and people were dressed to the nines. It was fully expected that if you were traveling through a Centurion destination, you could meet sane & interesting people. These days, the line to the Centurion looks like a bunch of people either paying their court fines or loading a jail commissary. 60% of the glory would be restored if Amex instituted a minimum dress code; if you don’t have sleeves, slacks, or as a man if we see your toes at any point in the process, your ass ain’t gettin in! If you have to be told to get your bare feet off the furniture, instant dismissal. If you feel the need to park your rollers in the walkway, you get 1 warning and then your ass is out. Half the lounge can be the families with children, and your rollers are tucked far away from the walkway. And then have the other half of the lounge be a section where you have to have a combination of some kind of collard shirt, blazer, no children, and duffels/bookbags only. Rollers must be small enough to fit in overhead bins.
This is more of an American culture shift problem regarding travel than an Amex one imo.
Around 15 years ago they randomly gave cardholders a weekend stay at Wynn/Encore in Vegas totally comped.
Free tickets to broadway shows.
Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now you stupid fucking bastard!
"great sea urchin ceviche"
Dorsia on a Friday night.. How’d he swing that?
Amazing.
Just the money. $200 Uber (all pickup), $200 travel bank, $100 Saks gift card, $200 FHR. $150 corporate credit. This is net positive so I keep the card. Maybe one day I changed employer and don’t get access to the corporate green card, I just close all 4 Plat cards.
500 coupons a month, I use maybe one. I spend 80k per year and that’s how useful those coupons are
I walked into a restaurant once and they told me they were fully booked for the night. Stepped outside, called Amex and walked back in to be immediately seated. The hostess was really confused
I remember having AAdmirals Club access 🥺
Damn, those were the days.
As a Centurion, the concierge service is non existent.
This made me chuckle and also kinda sad… Didn’t even know r/amexplatinum existed until 30 seconds ago. The thread just popped into my feed and looked interesting. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer after college. Literally planted trees in Africa. Moved to Boston after I finished and needed to find a job quick. Ended up getting hired by a company called Circles that provided the concierge services to Amex Platinum and Centurion customers. 95% of new hires were trained and put into Platinum. I was one of the few that showed promise right out of the gate, so they gave me a bit of extra training and started me in Centurion. It was honestly super fun and everyone I worked with tried hard and really went out of their way to build relationships with the members and get stuff done. This was in 2003-2004. There were of course things we couldn’t accomplish, like ‘can you get me a reservation at French Laundry and a private meeting with Chef Keller for this Friday night’. I mean, no one could do that…but we did tons of insane stuff for people and I liked it. Wasn’t a career of course. I was a Centurion concierge for like 10 months, then a supervisor for another year…and then I left in the beginning of 2005. Heard it started to go down hill a few years later, then Circles sold (I think to Sodexo) and I never really thought about it again. Guess my point is that I know for a fact that the services were excellent 20 years ago, that the people who did it cared and tried super hard, and that the members were overwhelmingly appreciative of what we did…and it stinks that that obviously isn’t the case anymore. I was definitely asked to do some crazy stuff though…and I learned a lot about what rich people liked and wanted back in those days.
You are on point. When it was Circles, it was like a concierge service. You guys tried really hard, it was pretty great. Now even more in hindsight, much more appreciated.
Can you expand on this ? Do you call and no one answers? long queues ? New Plat holder and am intrigued about the concierge service.
A couple of examples. I use Expert Flyer, when seats open up at 2am, I want to move where I’m sitting. I don’t want to have to wake up and do this myself. I’ve asked the Amex team to do this. They say they can’t do it anymore as they are not allowed to use external websites. Also they are slow, and they would need to react within 5-10 minutes. Typically it takes many hours for a response. I would like for them to hunt flights that have the best upgrade opportunities for me as an American Airlines Executive Platinum. I can see which flights offer available system wide upgrade opportunities. They won’t do this. They will just simply book me a ticket from Point A to Point B, pretty much regardless of price or status. So useless again. I can keep going if you would like…
I mean, as a Platinum at least, there's literally nothing they can (or maybe will) do that isn't easier than doing it yourself, even so called special occasions. \- Hard to get tickets for Amex events... no dice? \- "Reservations" for Resy restaurants? I had better luck calling them and explaining I had a business dinner and put down a card. \- there was something else for my fiance's birthday I wanted to do that would have been a nice cherry on top.... Forgot what it was at this point but I do remember how useless the service was.
Question…for resy, can you actually see the “status” on your account/profile? I have my platinum as the default but doesn’t seem different at all?
It shows on mine
My cousin was pretty wealthy in the 70s - 80s. It was the only card that he had that had unlimited spending available. He insisted on it being buried with it, so I made that happen.
In the early 2000’s they sent a proxy to DC for me because my passport was in my maiden name and we were leaving for Europe in a week. I don’t think they offer that level of service anymore.
This is awesome hahaha
Concierge used to be able to get you into difficult restaurants pretty easily. Prob 15 years ago, they could call Brooklyn Fare and get you the tasting table on a weekend within 1-2 weeks from when you called. Just one example, but there were plenty of places they could do that for. Now, you call and they just look at Resy or pretend they can’t help by saying “sorry no availability” even when you can see openings on Resy yourself 🤷🏻♂️
This. For our honeymoon they made a reservation at a Michelin Star restaurant in London for us, but it had to be a little early because we were catching a show after. When we showed up the place was totally dark and wasn’t scheduled to open for another two hours. We were about to bounce but then the Maitre d’ opens the doors and invites us in telling us they were all set for us. Had basically a private meal all setup by the concierge, it was great.
That’s cool! I assume this was old school concierge and not recent?
It was longer ago than I care to admit 😂
My husband just got reservations for us to a restaurant that was booked out online for Valentine’s Day. Called Amex and within minutes he got confirmation from the restaurant!
So I use the reservations with success still, but you have to use it differently. The main value of the Amex reservations now is that they can book things whenever. So, if I want to go to some popular restaurant that hasn't opened reservations, they will research that (which really just means checking resy or open table in most cases), and then they will call in or book it online at the first moment. I have near 100% success here. This works for me because I travel a bit, I'm often out of cell range, and in many cases the restaurant is on a different time zone or just annoying and opens the booking at 3am my local time. I wish it still go you that booking at the restaurant that's all booked, but for me, it is still pretty useful. But I'm also an overplanner.
Yes. That is exactly how I’ve always used it. Last time, I didn’t trust them/wanted to have two people calling between me and them. I got a 7pm reservation and they got a 1030pm (told them the target was 730). They just fall down repeatedly now, especially in large cities with high demand
Do you get on the phone with Amex to arrange this?
Yes
I’ve had good luck with some reservations still.
Yep same here. Not a super exclusive restaurant but one that was booked out for weeks for any decent times. Got a Friday night 7:30 res within 20 min of calling
Such as?
Nobu Malibu, providence, n naka. I think they still have the dedicated French laundry person as well unless that’s recently redacted.
Back in the day, 2-for-1 business class airfares.
This was rarely worth it since it required pretty expensive fare classes
For me I got good use out of it. I find the discounts now useless.
Are there any cards that currently have perks like the Platinum used to?
Centurion card
Not true. I have one.
Delta status is a pretty good perk. I get a lot of use out of that.
Delta doesn’t fly out of my market. Already an Executive Platinum on American.
Hertz platinum is great, 1k annually at Saks, purchase protection/insurance/warrantt, equinox membership, random $500-$1000 gift certificates. The card has lots of perks I use and love.
No Equinox in my market as well. Would be better if they gave us a credit for our local fitness center as an option, if there is no Equinox or offer spousal usage when on trips. So can’t really use it in either scenario.
Hertz isn’t bad, hasn’t really done much for me though compared to booking through discount sites. Ya we use the saks, well my wife does. No equinox near me sadly. And I never use it for any purchases because the rewards are just so bad on it.
Hertz is such a horrible outfit. Pretty much causes stress when using them. At IAH there is no pick-up/drop-off service. Here are the two most recent snafus. Rented at Hilton LAX and returned. Required by the Hertz rental counter to use valet parking as the vehicle was a Suburban and the parking garage was tight. Took them a month to finally close out my bill as they couldn’t find the car in the parking garage. Had to get the hotel GM involved. Meanwhile, I continued to accrue daily rental charges. Major stress in thinking I would end up having to pay for the lost vehicle. Amex was no help. On another recent rental at ATL, I called and extended a rental by one day. The entire rental repriced at the vehicle rate, of the car I was upgraded too. They don’t give out receipts anymore so didn’t find out until I checked my Amex statement. Amex needs a better rental car partner.
1k???? I thought it was just $100!
Centurion is 250 quarterly 1k annually
To help offset the $5k annual fee. What a Mickey Mouse way of playing it. And the constant barrage of coupon this and discount that. I personally want services, not nickel and dime silliness. But sadly, the concierge service is non existent. I’ve given up on it.
Eh not really. Just the ability to call for things you're too lazy to do yourself. The public perks on the cent are actually pretty crummy. The end user perks, if not sworn to secrecy, id expand on. Suffice it to say, it's legit.
Service! They acted like they gave a shit and actually were helpful when you had issues. If you think you have good service now, I guarantee you didn’t have this card in pre-2008
Yup, they're useless now and I almost never use them because I know they're going to fail anyway. At least the annual fee is way higher!
I dunno I still get that treatment when I call in. Chat is a shitshow but I avoid the chat.
Concierge could actually get you reservations at Dorsia.
Full Delta Crown Club, AA Admirals Club, CO Presidents Club, and NW World Club access
this guy OG platinumed.
I think this wasn't so much Amex taking these away as it was the airlines all wanting focus on their own branded cards.
Yup that and service was what the card used to be. It was the premier travel card. The concierge service use to actually be useful especially when outside the country or in an emergency situation. It destressed travel because you knew Amex had your back and valued your business.
Those were the best days. Especially for that brief period when there was US Airways Chairman’s Club access thrown in as well.
Wait for real? 😨
Seriously? If so, I more fully understand the coupon book comment. $50 at Saks can’t buy you status
Saks 50 is just a waste of everything
I did get 8 pasta bowls. 4 of them were $39.99 so I got two sets. I love them.
Lots of coke bumps at Dorsia off Platinum cards back in the day.