Anyone get the blk Amex recently ??

[Open123]

I'd imagine the Personal Centurion to have much stricter requirements, since it's mostly personal expenditures.  

Spending $250K on a personal CC is much different from the same amount on a business one.  For instance, to spend $250 on luxury consumption (non tax deductible) would require pre-tax earnings of rougly $400K.

On the other hand, for business expenses, it's pretty easy to hit north of $500K, just with charging lease, capex (irs rule 179), and quarterly taxes.

*Edited* For example, 2013 IRS rule 179 allows for 100% write off of capex spending without having to amortize over a shedule of years, which allows for many businesses to easily exceed the $250K threshold this year.

[JonStur]

I think they want their air of exclusivity back, so they have started to tighten up their restrictions...

[sjt]

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@JonStur wrote:

I think they want their air of exclusivity back, so they have started to tighten up their restrictions...

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+1

I think Amex has realized that there is no correlation between exclusivity and spend. I think there are many ways of getting a Centurion and its not just by spending requirement. Its the type of charges on the card and the consistency of the spend.

[rlx01]

The US Cent is almost pointless compared to the Plat. Apart from the self satisfaction, I honestly don't see the attraction.  It has seen a lot of benefits removed in recent years.

Other country Cent at least come with some hard to earn status on CX, etc.

[sjt]

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@rlx01 wrote:

The US Cent is almost pointless compared to the Plat. Apart from the self satisfaction, I honestly don't see the attraction.  It has seen a lot of benefits removed in recent years.

Other country Cent at least come with some hard to earn status on CX, etc.

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I think one of the reasons Amex is trying to make it more exclusive is to attract more marketing partners.

[w20031424]

I've heard one or two guys on Flyertalk got it this year.. but it is extremley hard. I would imagine you have to earn at least a million dollars a year to be eligible recently. 

[scenery_guy]

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@CreditScholar wrote:

The number of centurions being issued have been very limited lately for various reasons.

First the amount of spending required is more than 250k, and for personal cards it must be on luxury goods & services.

The second thing to keep in mind is that spending levels alone won't get you an invite. Amex is looking for people who fit the image they want associated with that product. Therefore celebrities and high level corporate execs will often fit the bill, but a random person with high levels of spend may not.

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I disagree with some of this. The number of cards might be limited but we really have no way of knowing. The personal and luxury good is also misconstrued. I'm sure they would love that but one of my clients has a personal one and he got the invite with a little over $100,000 spend a year for a few years running most of it non luxury (but a very good AMEX business client with spend and merchant account). Prior to the Centurion he had a Platinum and that was the only hard requirement that he knew of to get the card. Another client has the business version and he got it by calling and asking to get an invite based on $500,000 spend a year on the Platinum card. They took care of it no problems. He utilizes the perks heavy plus got Platinum cards for a couple of his employees. Both clients in entertainment industry. 

Client #2 assured me that if I concentrated my spend on my Business Platinum that I could make the call and get the invite as well. I don't mind the fee if the perks are used often enough but now I have most of them covered with other lower fee cards. I just spent the money to get an employee a Business Platinum AU card at $300 per year so the fees are adding up slowly. I spend about $200,000 on my Delta cards a year (1 personal and 1 business) but I do so to get and keep medallion level. In reality that's poorly placed spend (besides the miles being very low value for redemption) as I have been buying business class or first class tickets from the start and really don't need the medallion for hope to get free upgrades. It does help with flight changes and I do get almost all upgrades on tickets I don't buy each year. 

If I dropped all of my AMEX cards for the Centurion I could easily make $350,000 to $400,000 a year spend business and still do a decent personal spend on some Chase products I want to keep active. I just don't see the value for the card and I kind of like juggling about 20 cards in a rotation. 

See - I just talked myself out of it. 

[scenery_guy]

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@Open123 wrote:

I'd imagine the Personal Centurion to have much stricter requirements, since it's mostly personal expenditures.  

Spending $250K on a personal CC is much different from the same amount on a business one.  For instance, to spend $250 on luxury consumption (non tax deductible) would require pre-tax earnings of rougly $400K.

On the other hand, for business expenses, it's pretty easy to hit north of $500K, just with charging lease, capex (irs rule 179), and quarterly taxes.

*Edited* For example, 2013 IRS rule 179 allows for 100% write off of capex spending without having to amortize over a shedule of years, which allows for many businesses to easily exceed the $250K threshold this year.

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+1 for this method. I can't charge my leases (boo) but I do charge my taxes even with the service fees. 

[youngman1234]

See I juggle around a few cards... But I have learned last month that my max spend limit with Amex is like 110k which I reached last month... As of today I spent 150k on personal and 200k on business but I have only had business for 9 months..forecasting the next 3 months I'm easily seeing another 60-75k easy. So ur talking first year of having the business gold 275k which is not bad and our business is growing every year....

[youngman1234]

Hey I'm 24 even a invited to a blk would be awesome...lmao jk