American express has made a big change coming in 2023 year 2023 in regards to centurion lounge access for people that come with you, so i don't want to waste any time. It's gon na be a quick video. Let's get right into it! Everybody welcome back to the channel um. This is the credit card maestro.

We talk about travel credit and we do vlog so make sure you subscribe to the channel and make sure you thumb this video up if you found it helpful, um and all that good stuff. So, like i said, american express is making a huge change. I am a big advocate, big fan of american, express this change. It's going to put this out here.

It's not a complaint. It's not anything like that. It's more so just kind of relaying the information, but i'll still give you my own personal views on it as well. Starting february 1st 2023, my favorite travel card, the american express platinum cart, is going to start charging the primary account holder for each person.

That comes with you, uh to this tutorial lounge. Now, up until today, this video was recorded. You can bring up to two guests complimentary um. Now that's good um, but the issue that has been really happening - and this was this - was probably pre-coveted um.

It was getting really crowded, it was getting really crowded, um even like right now it was i was in um. I was in charlotte um, maybe like three weeks ago, i did a video. I did a vlog of the centurion lounge. So make sure you check that video out right here i did a vlog um on the centauri lounge, just kind of show you what it looks like and it was pretty crowded for it to be post uh during covet, and i think american express is making this Change to kind of slow it down, so what the change is starting february 1st 2023 again, if you want to bring some people with you um you have to they're going to dollars per person.

Now there is a work around those. Let's talk about that now. This is going to be uh a challenge for probably many spending. Seventy five thousand dollars on a credit card.

It's gon na be tough um yeah, it's gon na be tough for most people to spend 75k. I can't even justify spending 75 000 on the american express platinum card because i'm not going to get the most bang for my buck. So, even if you can spend 75 000 in a day or two or a year, one point per dollar or more on most purchases, this is probably not. It doesn't even really make sense.

So, yes, that's the first way. If you spend seventy five thousand dollars in one year uh, you will unlock two years of complimentary access for guests and citizen touring, lounge. Yes and again, that is 75 000 us dollars no joke! That is a chunky amount of money to spend um. So yes, now, this is again only for the platinum card holders.

If you are a centaurian card holder or you have a corporate card does not apply to you and again just to clarify no corporate platinum cards or centaurian, whether that's business or personal. This doesn't apply. It definitely wouldn't apply to the centaurian card holders, because i could only imagine uh how many centurion car people would cancel for paying such a hefty fee. I'm not mistaken the annual fee for a centaurian car, which the black card is either 5 000 a year or 7 500 a year.

One of them is in the initiation fee and the other one is the annual fee. I believe it may be 5 000 per year for the annual fee, so if they had to pay 50 per person, i can only imagine the uh the frustration. A lot of american express centaurian card orders would give to amax. There is one more work around with this and uh not talked about much.

The easiest way to work around. This is for people that you travel with. Most of the time at the moment is an authorized user. Now, not a gold card authorized user, which is free.

I believe you can have up to 99 gold card authorized users on your american express card. Not that way, even until today, if you go, if you go on there with a gold card you're not getting in, you have to add them on as a authorized user and give them a platinum card, and the platinum card has an annual fee for an authorized User, i believe, 175, so they still get. You know some of the benefits that you get so 175 and, in my opinion, having the platinum card as an authorized user card on somebody else's account still is worth it. You can go to delta sky clubs by yourself when you're flying through delta.

You can do this touring lounge. It's definitely worth it in my opinion, so i would definitely do that as a workaround, and you can do that for let's say a husband and a wife scenario: um if you're not spending seventy five thousand dollars on a card per year. Add your wife or your husband onto your uh as an au pay 175 extra per year and then they'll be able to come with you for free because they you both have platinum cards um. So that's to work around with it.

I wanted to know what you guys thought about it me personally. How i feel about it is. I think i understand where american express is coming from um. The only way i can logically explain this in my own terms, i believe, is to cut back on the crowds.

There has been a lot of issues with the uh centauri lounge, just being packed um and with everything going on with social distancing. I think it put american express um, not i've, been saying a pickle, but it maybe just expedited the process like we got to figure something out and uh. This was the way they figured it out. Um so, like i said, it's still a workaround um.

If you really want to go to the centaurian lounge um, you can still do so just one half the platinum card or two, if you're adding one as the au of a platinum card um and make sure you get the platinum cart version of that. Not the gold card or anything like that, so there's still a workaround. You know they're not kicking us out or anything like that um, but i think they're just really trying to find ways to take the capacity down, especially in a unfortunately covet we're in a covid world now. So that's my video for today.

But again, let me know what you guys think again: american express is still my favorite um bank. Still my favorite card to use for travel. The platinum card has so many benefits. So, if you're interested in that make sure you click the link down below in the description and also look at my teespring stuff, it's got some new merchandise as you can see um.

This is the, and i don't even know i didn't think about this before, but it's very simple i, like it um yeah, so just has my name on it, has what i do and it would be nice if you support that. You rep that, especially when you're in airports and things like that, so when people see it they'll do some searching as well and possibly subscribe. So i hope you guys enjoyed the video and again make sure you like share and subscribe i'll talk to you soon be safe. Take care! You.