I am almost positive that the Centurian Card and the "Black" card are one in the same. It is also my understanding that the Black card is by invite only....but the only qualification is that you put $30k per month on your Gold/Platinum/Green AMEX card for a straight 12 month period.
The fee for the black card is pretty steep and IMO is only worth it for people who are retired and travel 100% of the time or people who are really, really vein.
I have several AMEX cards, but prefer my oldest one because I got it back in 1993 under a program that they ran called "Rewards Plus"....I get 2 points for every dollar that I put on that card regardless of what it is for and that adds up quickly. Another benefit to AMEX points is that unlike FF miles they *never* expire so be sure to leave them in AMEX until you need them.
As for points, Brad, they are easily transferrable to your Airline FF account, so using them is as easy as your airlines points program. I transfer at least 150k points per month to Delta and back in the day I could travel all month on that....but lately due to Delta's restictions on points it is harder and harder to get point seats. For example, a regular first class point seat is 40k points for a roundtrip ticket. If there are no "point seats" available then you can use 80k points and get any seat on any flight. The 40k seats are getting harder and harder to come by, so if you want to fly at speific times/days you will find yourself spending 80k and that just "gets my goat".
With all of that said, however...I still do it and it is WAY better than spending $2200 for the airline ticket!!!
--T
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