One Week with the Black Card

So it’s been a week since I got the AMEX Black Card http://watchusmakemoney.com/?p=18 and so far I’m not that impressed. Most of the benefits like airline, hotel and car rental elite status take weeks to set up. The personal and travel concierge was available almost immediately but so far they have been somewhat less than the miracle workers they are commonly thought to be. One of the much talked about benefits is access to personal shoppers and the ability to shop after hours at some stores, like Neiman Marcus. I was in the mall on Wednesday right before closing and I wanted to go to Neiman Marcus which is on the other side of the mall (a 15 minute walk) so I called the Concierge and asked them to keep the store open for me, they said that they weren’t able to get a hold of the store by phone so they  couldn’t help. It turns out that the store actually closes an hour before the rest of the mall so it wasn’t all Amex’s fault. On Thursday I tried again a little earlier and was told that the personal shopper only worked until 6PM and that the Neiman Marcus I go to will not keep the store open late. I went anyways and got there as they were closing the doors, the sales lady stayed for almost an hour while I picked out what I wanted. The lights and cash register both shut off before they finished ringing up my transaction so they had to write down my credit card number to charge later. I was very impressed with Neiman Marcus but I can’t really say that American Express had anything to do with it. So far I used my card for about $400 at Nordstroms, $700 at Neiman Marcus, $450 at a custom clothes shop and $700 at a suit store and there was no noticeable benefit of paying with the Black Card. As I expected none of the sales people asked what the card was or gave any sign that they knew what it was, 2 people out of 15+ commented on the weight of the card. The best thing I can say about the card so far is that b/c it’s a charge card and not a credit card if I use it for all my purchases it may keep me from getting further in debt. Hopefully I will be able to test out the travel benefits in a few weeks, I’ll let you know how that goes.