There are just too many Platinum Card holders who like travel…
New alert – American Express has a major problem. The credit card behemoth has too many people signing up for their $450-$550 a year American Express Platinum Cards (Learn More), and it’s causing capacity issues at the brilliant airport lounges they’ve created, which instantly raised the bar for U.S. airport lounge standards.
Amex Platinum and Centurion credit cards around the world have proven more popular than ever as travelers attempt to bypass the stress of the airport, and the success now requires more everything…
Concept
American Express introduced the Centurion Lounge Concept with intimate spaces, in highly underserved airports – such as New York’s (abysmal) LaGuardia. With wine worth drinking, local celebrity chef food well worth eating and craft cocktails from expert mixologist Jim Meehan, the lounges became an instant smash. The only question was: when does my airport get one?
Locations
Centurion Lounges popped up in Dallas, Hong Kong, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco and Seattle, to much traveler acclaim and fanfare, but like all good things, there was just one problem. Too many people wanted in, and there wasn’t really a way to say no to people paying annual fees of $450 and up, when the airport benefits are a big part of the value in holding the card. Lounge guests were reduced, and paid entry for other cardholders was nixed, yet the ever popular lounges were still crowded.
Solutions
So what do you do? For starters – build more lounges. Amex’s gorgeous new Dallas Fort Worth opened just yesterday, and the largest Centurion Lounge to date will open at New York’s JFK in 2019, with an impressive 15,000 square feet of space. Denver and Los Angeles will follow.
Next – make current Centurion lounges larger. That’s a project Amex is eagerly involved in at many of their most popular spaces, like Seattle – but working with airports is no simple task. The credit card giant is said to be considering reservation systems, via the Amex app as a potential means of handling space needs. Build it well, and they will come in droves! Apparently…
Featured images courtesy of American Express.
