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American Express Purchase Protection Program

Daniel — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:45:17 +0000

One reason I was tempted and ultimately decided to go with the amex centurion black card, was the fact that they have a purchase protection plan. Basically they will cover in item in the event that its lost stolen damaged or you are unhappy with the item for any reason. This all sounds great, today I called member services to request a refund for a purchase I made for an item that I’m not happy with. American express notified me that the protection plan only will cover up to 300 dollars. This purchase was for $1,300, so again I’m starting to think this card is a waste of money. Please let me know what you think about the card.

AMEX Centurion Black Card Concierge

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:42:10 +0000

A lot has been written about how amazing the American Express Centurion Black Card Concierge is. For example:

One cardholder wanted to locate and purchase the horse ridden by Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. The horse was located in a stud ranch in Mexico, purchased and delivered to Europe by the concierge (from http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/blackcard.asp)

I haven’t thought of much to ask my concierge for yet, I only called in twice but so far they haven’t done anything I couldn’t do. The first time I called them I asked them to find me a local store that carried Pantherella Cashmere Socks, or a store that could ship them to me. This is the response I received:

I was not able to locate anything local or any physical stores for that matter, near you or in the US. Below I have listed 2 links that do sell the socks and ship to addresses in the US. I was able to find some places in the UK that will ship to the US but they are not partnered with us, so I cannot recommend those for you. Please look over these links below.

http://www.customshirt1.com/Socks_Mens_Cashmere.htm

http://www.dann-online.com/pantherella_socks_from_dann.htm

I was expecting more, like an offer to order them and have them hand-delivered but I couldn’t find anything better myself so I’ll say they did OK on this.

Today I wanted to go to the Detroit Tigers game and sit behind the Tigers dugout, American Express is supposed to have access to the best tickets around. I told them I was willing to sit anywhere in the infield box behind the Tigers dugout or in the dugout itself if they were really good. They knew I was joking about sitting in the dugout but they did offer to call up and ask (I told them they should but I don’t think they did). They were unable to get me any tickets in the sections requested through the ticket department but they did offer to go to third party brokers for me, I declined. I was able to find the tickets I wanted on Stubhub for about $30, I’m sure they would have found those for me if I asked but the bottom line is that in this case it was easier and faster for me to look myself than to call the concierge.

In another case, Daniel asked his concierge to get him a limo on a saturday night at about 2AM (actually sunday morning) to take him to the Casino. The Concierge said there were none available and that they couldn’t call the Casino for us to ask them to send a car. It took me two phone calls to find a limo that was available. That was pretty disappointing.

I’m not saying that the Concierge is useless, I do still think there are things they can help with, especially when traveling. What I am saying is that if you think that when you get a Black Card you can get whatever you want with a single phone call, you are mistaken.

One Week with the Black Card

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:37:12 +0000

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.

Finally got an American Express Black Card

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:56:29 +0000

For those of you that don’t know the American Express Black Card is one of the most exclusive credit cards in the world, reserved for Celebrities and extremely wealthy people. Few people know about it even though it is frequently referenced in POP culture and even had a few songs made about it, here is my favorite:

You can find out more about the card at http://www.blackcardsource.com/

Daniel and I both got black cards today, we didn’t get the cards ourselves, we had someone add us as additional cardholders. We do have to pay the annual fee of $1,500.00 each and we have to pay our bill in full every month. From what I’ve read of the material that came with the card most of the rumors about it are false but there are some amazing benefits that I will try to take advantage of to make this card worthwhile. I will post some of my experiences with the card soon, trying to decide where to use the card first. I doubt if I will get any reaction from store clerks in metro Detroit as they probably have no idea what the card is, not many rich people come here to do their shopping.