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Amex Centurion card: what is it and what are the UK benefits?

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What is the American Express Centurion card? What does it cost and what are the benefits in the UK?

We realised that we had never done a Head for Points article on the UK American Express Centurion card, or ‘The Black Card’ as many people call it. This isn’t unreasonable, since it is ‘by invitation only’, but we thought you might be interested in a look behind the veil of secrecy.

The Centurion Card is being relaunched in 2021 with “a renewed focus on the art of living”. We have absolutely no idea what this means, unless it is short-hand for ‘we are dropping a lot of the travel benefits’. We will know soon enough as the new package is about to launch in the Nordic region before expanding to the rest of Europe. Here is 3-minute promo video for the new card which manages to say absolutely nothing …..

American Express Centurion Card UK review

We have put this article together with the help of some UK Amex Centurion-holding HfP readers. If you have the card and notice any errors, email me at rhys at headforpoints.com and I will update it during the day.

What does Amex Centurion cost?

There is a £3,000 joining fee and a £2,200 annual fee. Unsurprisingly, the annual fee is NOT waived in the first year.

The costs have jumped up sharply since the card was launched. Anecdotally, Amex Centurion also seems to have tightened up on the type, rather than quantum, of spending they are looking for. We know some cardholders offered the card at launch who were only spending relatively modest sums with Amex, almost all of which was B2B purchasing.

What are the invitation criteria for the Amex Centurion card?

The American Express Centurion Card is by invitation only.

Whilst American Express does not publish its criteria (and there may not even be any fixed criteria) there are a range of behaviours that are likely to improve your chances of invitation.

Having a strong Amex history is key. Anecdotal evidence suggests that high spend is particularly effective on cards such as The Platinum Card (review here).

You are likely to be spending at least £25,000 per month, if not considerably higher, before you are on Amex’s radar. Spending on travel, luxury goods and other personal expenses is likely to be viewed more favourably than pushing high figures through to Google Adwords or Facebook advertising.

You may undergo a credit check during the application process. It is not clear if there is an income requirement.

Fundamentally, there is very little you can do to ‘attract’ an invitation. Amex knows the calibre of individuals it wants to invite and offers are likely made on a case-by-case basis. There is very little opportunity to game the system if you don’t lead the sort of lifestyle American Express is looking for.

Do I still earn Membership Rewards with The Centurion Card?

Yes, although only at the same rate as the majority of Amex cards.

You earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your Centurion card, or 2 per £1 spent on Amex Travel services.

Rather like The Platinum Card, it is likely that Centurion cardholders will put the majority of their spending onto other, more lucrative, cards.

Supplementary Centurion cards

The main card holder gets one stainless-steel card.

You also get one free supplementary titanium Centurion card as well four additional supplementary cards as standard. You can choose from Platinum, Gold or Green American Express cards.

You can also pay for additional supplementary titanium Centurion cards for £1,100 each per year, as well as other Amex consumer cards (at £275 each).

Until recently, when the fee for supplementary cards was raised sharply to £1,100, one of the best ways of enjoying the benefits of Centurion for a modest fee was to pay a Centurion-holding friend to issue you with a supplementary card.

What benefits does the American Express Centurion Card come with?

The Centurion Card comes with substantial benefits, as you would expect from Amex’s most premium card.

Top tier status with airlines and hotels

The Centurion Card bestows top tier status in a variety of loyalty programs.

The UK Centurion Card gives you Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Gold and Emirates Skywards Gold status. It is the only UK credit or charge card to offer free airline status.

You also get status with six major hotel groups:

  • Hilton Honors Diamond
  • IHG Rewards Platinum Elite
  • Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite
  • MeliaRewards Platinum
  • Radisson Rewards Gold
  • Jumeirah One Gold

This is a slightly eclectic list. Hilton Honors Diamond and MeliaRewards Platinum are top tier and so worth having.

However, Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite and IHG Rewards Platinum Elite have virtually no benefits and are not top-tier. Marriott Bonvoy Gold isn’t even ‘second to top tier’ – it is trumped by Ambassador, Titanium and Platinum.

Amex is dropping Shangri-La Golden Circle status on the Centurion card at the same time it is disappearing on the Platinum card. You can still enrol until the 31st March 2021.

These benefits are also available to your Supplementary Centurion cardholders.

Top tier status with car rental companies

Centurion cardholders are also bestowed with top-tier status at Avis and Hertz.

As a Hertz Gold Plus Rewards President’s Circle member you get:

  • Free additional driver
  • Guaranteed vehicle availability
  • Guaranteed one-car-class upgrades with every rental
  • 50% bonus points on all Hertz rentals

Whilst Avis Preferred President’s Club members get:

  • Free additional driver
  • Guaranteed one-class upgrade
  • A free weekend voucher after the third rental
  • Double upgrade upon availability at weekends

Airport lounge access

The Centurion card has virtually identical lounge benefits to The Platinum Card.

This includes a free Priority Pass membership that gets you and a guest free entry into any of the 1,300 airport lounges in the Priority Pass network.

You also get access to Amex’s own Centurion airport lounges, including the Heathrow Centurion lounge in Terminal 3 which is expected to open when T3 is back in use. Whilst Platinum cardholders can take up to two guests, if you have Centurion you can take your entire immediate family.

Centurion cardholders also get a complimentary glass of champagne or top-shelf whisky at Centurion lounges. There is also generally a table reserved for Centurion cardholders which can be useful given how busy the lounges can get.

Amex Centurion also gets you into Plaza Premium lounges, as well as the Eurostar Business Premier lounges and Delta Sky Club lounges.

Additional benefits at top-end hotels

Centurion cardmembers get additional benefits at the smaller luxury hotel chains Aman, Belmond, Mandarin Oriental, The Oetker Collection, Peninsula Hotels, St Regis, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts and Waldorf Astoria when booking through the Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts programme.

You receive:

  • a room upgrade at time of reservation (if available)
  • an additional $100 or $200 food, beverage or spa credit with a minimum two night stay.

These bookings must be made by telephone, unlike standard Fine Hotels & Resorts benefits for Platinum cardholders.

International limousine and meet & greet service

When you book your business class or first class trip through the Centurion Travel service you also get a free limousine service from the airport to any destination within 20km of the city centre.

The service is available in the following cities: Bangkok, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Madrid, Miami, New York JFK and LGA, Orlando, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore,Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto.

Some destinations also offer an International Meet & Greet service, where you and your guests can be met at the aircraft door on arrival and escorted through immigration and luggage collection.

These include: Bangkok, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney.

Heathrow Fast Track

You can use Heathrow’s Fast Track security lanes simply by flashing your Amex Centurion card and a valid boarding pass. Both you and your supplementary card holder can take one guest each, so the benefit covers a family of four.

£20 Addison Lee / Tristar credit

UK Centurion cardholders receive up to £20 in statement credit every month for UK trips booked with Addison Lee and Tristar.

Events, restaurants and concert venues

Having a Centurion card also gets you access to a variety of American Express events and private suites.

For example, Amex is a sponsor of the National Theatre. In addition to the ticket access, Amex Centurion cardholders are invited to exclusive pre-show champagne receptions with cast and crew.

Other regular events include the London Film Festival, Harvey Nichols launches and more.

American Express also holds a suite at the O2 that is available for booking. This is similar to the suites held by other companies such as the Marriott Bonvoy suite.

Centurion cardholders also get improved access to top restaurants. This is supposed to include last-minute reservations but in practice is more likely to be improved tables etc.

Travel insurance

Like The Platinum Card, the UK Centurion Card comes with comprehensive insurance cover.

The policy is fundamentally the same as the Platinum travel insurance here (pdf), but it does have slightly higher payouts.

For example, you receive £5,000,000 for necessary medical costs during your trip rather than £2,000,000 on the Platinum card. You can claim up to £12,500 for cancellation and postponement (up from £7,500) and up to £5,000 per trip from lost or stolen belongings (£2,000 on the Platinum card.)

Will I still have to pay foreign transaction fees?

Oddly, yes. You would think Amex would waive FX fees for a card with such a high annual fee and premium proposition, but it doesn’t. You still have to pay the 2.99% fee on all foreign transactions.

Is the UK Amex Centurion card worth it?

For the vast majority of people, spending £2,200 per year on a card fee may seem ludicrous. For some, however, it clearly makes sense.

The headline benefits of the black Amex Centurion card are likely not its biggest appeal.

The cardholders I spoke to valued access to exclusive events and experiences more highly than the published card benefits.

Unlike The Platinum Card, where a high-end traveller can make a case fairly easily for getting £575 of value from the card benefits, it is very difficult to justify £2,200 of value from The Centurion Card. This is especially true if you look at the difference between the Centurion and Platinum packages, which is not huge given the 4x fee differential.

The cardholders I spoke to also suggested that the customer service was a step above, with requests and queries simply sorted out rather than resorting to a scripted response. Things just get done.

If you just want hotel and airline status there are likely easier (and cheaper) ways. Most people don’t need status with six hotel chains – a focus on achieving one via the ‘traditional’ avenue may actually be better. Equally, taking out The Platinum Card can be a cheaper way of achieving mid-tier status at a number of chains.

If the American Express Centurion Card still appeals, however, you should get yourself the Platinum version and start putting substantial sums of money through it …..

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American Express Membership Rewards

Comments (161)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:33

    It will be interesting to see whether the relaunch will again bring an upper tier like the old Medallion programme.

    I can see why they’d want to offer a spend stimulation carrot to their Centurion portfolio and target benefits to their most profitable customers, but it must have frustrated many to pay the joining fee and realise they were still second-class.

    • Nigel W says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:44

      Yeah, I remember when they launched that thinking it would annoy a lot of people!

  • Crafty says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:43

    Seems completely pointless. Unless you can give some examples of these “exclusive events”?

    • Tom says:
      22 Feb22 February 07:52

      A trip on a private jet to Paris.

    • 1ATL says:
      22 Feb22 February 07:55

      Pre-covid these were things like invites to pre sale events, fashion shows, cooking classes with various celebrity chefs, hospitality at key concerts and sporting events…. think exclusive experiences that money can’t buy.

      • Alan says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:36

        Thanks – must say it sounds like, as with so many Amex offers, all fairly London-focused!

        • MT says:
          22 Feb22 February 08:41

          They certainly are and has been one of my main complaints to the Centurion Team for a long time but it makes no difference as I think its fair to say a huge majority of UK holders are based in London.

      • The Savage Squirrel says:
        22 Feb22 February 12:56

        “think exclusive experiences that money can’t buy.”
        …except all the things you list can be bought pretty easily with enough money?

    • Nigel W says:
      22 Feb22 February 09:02

      I’m a supplementary on my dad’s Centurion, so the free events (although getting a ‘place’ on them was interesting to say the least) were great fun as a student in London.

      My biggest ‘win’ was at a watch event, winning the raffle prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to Switzerland to have a private tour of their HQ and lunch with I think the chairman. The hotel and flights alone I worked out came to £1500 for the two of us.

      • KBuffett says:
        22 Feb22 February 10:53

        Sounds great. Which brand, if you don’t mind me asking?

        • Nigel W says:
          22 Feb22 February 13:44

          It was Jaegar Le-Coultre

          • JM says:
            22 Feb22 February 23:00

            Fantastic

          • Rob says:
            22 Feb22 February 23:04

            I was at that event, as the guest of a HfP reader. It also turned out that the woman who ran the UK operation who hosted that is the sister of someone I used to work with in my banking days.

          • KBuffett says:
            23 Feb23 February 07:35

            Very nice. I follow the Luxury Lifestyle & Events Managers for Centurion UK on Instagram. She’s out at a different hotel/high end restaurants multiple times a week. New cara regularly, executive house. At least you know the annual charges are being spent well 😆

  • 1ATL says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:59

    I’d also predict the relaunch to mean a doubling of the annual fee. That’s generally what a relaunch has meant to Amex in the past. It’ll be interesting to see whether the UK relaunch pans out this year or if it’ll be pushed back.

  • Tim says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:11

    I gave up my Centurion Card roughly 5 years ago because I really couldn’t justify the cost anymore given a fee increase & less business travel whilst before that I really could particularly because of the travel benefits. Hotel upgrades at time of booking really are worth a lot more than generally illusory upgrades at check in on Platinum if you travel a lot.

    Clearly the Centurion card has cachet or ‘snob value’ depending how you see it although at the time it was the only ‘metal card’ out there and now they are two a penny! (That expression shows my age!)

    I think the insurance benefits used to last through to 80 years old rather then 70 on Platinum but a good tip is that you can get that (80 limit) if you have a Euro Platinum Currency Card anyway.

    The National Theatre events were fun; pre show drinks and canapés & meeting (some of) the cast post show although it was always a bun fight to get tickets. Don’t know if that’s still the same today?

    The benefits listed today are virtually the same as 5 years ago which I find surprising.

    As a matter of interest I do wonder what the statement credits were/are during COVID for Centurion as I think they’ve been quite generous for Platinum.

    By the way if you want a personal concierge service there are many more cost effective ways to get it than Centurion. But as Rhys points out the card is not about the money!

    • TGLoyalty says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:38

      The pre xmas £100 for Platinum was £350 for centurion

      believe the current £175 is c£400 based upon comments from when it launched

      considering it has 4x the fee its hardly surprising but I’d say not as generous as they should be as I’d expect 4x the money back.

      • MT says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:44

        Those of us who got lucky with the original Covid statement credit and mranged to save it to all cards before they realised their mistake had a very cheap year on Centurion this year, they have ended up paying us money.

        • meta says:
          22 Feb22 February 10:50

          Even as Platinum cardholder, Amex always ends up paying me at least double in statement credits. This year it’s been more like 4x with credits and points.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          22 Feb22 February 18:28

          One or two of us were so lucky they added the centurion offer to our platinum by mistake (as well as the Platinum one) and gave us 50k points.

  • ChrisW says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:25

    I find it fascinating that people who spend so many money each month on a card (and pay so much in annual fees) like this can be bothered with jumping through the hoops or earning and using points (finding availability etc) just to save a few thousand pounds on a premium cabin ticket

    • KBuffett says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:39

      It’s important to not that the Emirates and Virgin status is only available for the primary card holder.

    • Russ says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:49

      It’s because we saved a few thousand pounds on a premium cabin ticket that we can afford the ticket in the first place 🙂

      No one else get a hamper at Christmas?

    • Rob says:
      22 Feb22 February 10:20

      The irony is, however, that they really ARE saving a few thousand pounds. If you wouldn’t pay cash for First or Business Class then your Avios ticket is not a real saving. For someone who would have paid cash for that ticket, it is a real saving.

      You also don’t understand the mentality of wealthy people. Anyone who has become rich by running their own business has succeeded by being ruthless on expenses. It is hard to separate this between your personal and private lives.

      Colin Evans, who is late 70’s now and owns Collinson (Priority Pass, a huge number of insurance businesses etc) and is worth a few hundred million at the least, still flies economy to visit his offices around the world if he can’t find a cheap business class fare. I know this because when we had lunch he was literally about to set off on a trip.

      • ChrisW says:
        22 Feb22 February 10:40

        I don’t see the point in working hard to earn a lot of money if you can’t enjoy it!

        • KBuffett says:
          22 Feb22 February 10:57

          As Rob says, it’s about understanding the mentality of the wealthy. Especially those who’ve worked hard to become so.

        • DK says:
          22 Feb22 February 13:47

          These people enjoy working hard, they don’t work hard to enjoy something else. Flying economy or business won’t increase their happiness level. This is what ‘poor’ people don’t understand!

  • Tom C says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:39

    I read somewhere that you can phone up and ask to be considered, so I did that in 2017 and then received an invitation in the post a few months later.

    The Centurion just didn’t seem to offer anything to justify the nearly £5k year one spend, so I decided against it. The myth around the card is propagated by how good the Americans have it with their version, but the UK one just wasn’t for me.

  • PeterS says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:57

    One of the main benefits that’ not listed here is the free North American Car Hire Insurance. This used to save me a fortune and is the only reason I have kept the card for the past few years. Given that I now also get this via a US Platinum card without the foreign exchange fee, the Centurion value is much reduced and if it hadn’t been for the very good shopping rebates that have been rolled out this year I would have cancelled already. If the annual fee does rise to match the US at $5,000 then I don’t expect I’ll keep it once I’ve used up the current statement credits.

    Statement credits since lockdown have included about £800 at Waitrose / Deliveroo (I think I missed out on the first £200 which would have made it £1,000) , £400 at Harrods without any minimum. I spent £402 on Harrods hampers and wine for Christmas and paid just £2 which was very helpful!

    For info, I have had the card for about 10 years and have never spent at the levels I hear cited as a minimum to get an invite. Perhaps two or three times ever has my monthly spend gone over £20,000 and the average was always much lower.

    • Rhys says:
      22 Feb22 February 09:46

      You get rental car insurance on the Platinum card too!

      • PeterS says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:02

        Yes, but last time I checked it wasn’t quite as good and you had to pay entirely on the card whereas with Centurion you can pay any way you like (I tend to use my US card to avoid the foreign charge and let me pay from my US account).

        • Rhys says:
          22 Feb22 February 13:22

          You don’t have to pay with the card to be covered with Platinum – I’ve just written an extensive article on the insurance coverage (yet to be published….)

  • Jayne says:
    22 Feb22 February 09:22

    I have one of the black cards and I question daily as to why I have! Haven’t found the concierge service reliable or helpful to be honest. Waste of money……
    possibly.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

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