Dinner at Craig’s in West Hollywood Last Minute and Fifth Row Seats at Lorde’s St. Louis Concert Thanks to American Express Platinum Concierge
I’ve talked about the American Express Platinum Card time and time again. In a world chaulked full of travel credit cards claiming to be the most premium option, the American Express Platinum Card is the clear winner. Few cards come close to providing the benefits that the American Express Platinum Card offers. From access to Centurion Lounges worldwide to elite status at two major hotel chains, these are just two benefits the card offers.
I recently shared a post about what I believe is a relatively underrated benefit of the American Express Platinum Card. Back in March, I completed a one-night stay at the Loews Chicago Downtown, booking my stay through American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts. Fine Hotels and Resorts is a phenomenal program allowing Platinum cardholders to receive a variety of benefits including free breakfast, upgrades, and property credit at participating hotels and resorts. It really is one of the most underrated benefits of the Platinum card. However, I’ve also had the opportunity to test another underrated benefit, the American Express Platinum Concierge.
American Express Platinum Concierge, What Is It?
Dozens of credit cards offer concierge service, typically allowing cardholders to book hotels and reserve rental cars without having to visit travel sites. Additionally, restaurant reservations are also a pretty common request made through these concierge services. The American Express Platinum Card also offers a concierge service. However, this service is much more premium and extensive than the typical credit card concierge service.
American Express Platinum Card members have access to a dedicated phone number and email address that allows cardholders to contact the American Express Platinum Concierge team anytime. Within minutes, cardholders are connected to a live representative ready to assist them with a plethora of requests.
What Can American Express Platinum Concierge Do for Cardholders?
What sets American Express Platinum Concierge apart from other credit card concierge services, aside from the ease of reaching a concierge team member, is the variety of services offered to cardholders. Here are a few things the American Express Platinum Concierge can do for Platinum cardholders.
- Book a flight including complex routings like multi-city tickets and mixed-cabin fares*
- Book a stay at a hotel including at Fine Hotels and Resorts and other hotels*
- Reserve rental cars
- Book transportation including town cars and limos
- Organize meetings and special events
- Contact local florists to have flowers delivered to that special someone
- Contact local shops to inquire about desired items
- Access exclusive tickets/seats to most concerts around the globe
- Make last minute reservations at some of the most popular restaurants
- Have a personal shopper buy a gift for someone
- Have a delivery service bring you a fresh pair of clothes at a moments notice
These are just a few of the things the Platinum Concierge service is able to do. I’ve denoted a few items with an asterisk. These are travel-related requests, and multiple sources indicate that the concierge team will simply transfer you over to American Express Travel which is not the most personal and seamless experience.
The rest of the requests are pretty straight-forward. Each benefit and request is going to vary by location, time, and date. For example, it’s going to be much easier for the American Express Platinum Concierge team to have a courier service bring someone a fresh pair of dress-pants in New York City at 3 PM than if that same person was in Ulaanbaatar at 3 AM. (Extreme example) To see just how effective the concierge team is at fulfilling requests, I decided to stretch the limits of the benefit to a reasonable extent.
5th Row Seats to Lorde’s St. Louis Concert
My first experience using the American Express Platinum Concierge service was purchasing concert tickets to a very popular concert in the St. Louis area. Lorde was coming to town in two weeks, and I realized that I still hadn’t bought tickets. If there’s one thing I don’t do, it’s sit in subpar seats when I go to concerts. Additionally, Lorde is one of my favorite singers at the moment, so there was no way I was going to sit more than 10 rows back, especially at the venue at which she was performing.
I assumed that I could find pretty good seats two weeks out. However, I was wrong. None of your typical ticket sites featured tickets anywhere close to the stage. StubHub did have a few tickets, but a single ticket was going for $200+. So, I turned to the American Express Concierge team. They managed to get me and a friend fifth-row seats on the floor just two weeks out.
Within an hour or so of purchasing the tickets through the concierge team, I received a PDF with both tickets and a thoughtful email.
Last Minute Reservations at Craig’s in West Hollywood
A few weeks later, while I was on Spring Break in Southern California, I decided to use the concierge service to reserve a table for three at one of LA’s more exclusive restaurants.
My friends and I had agreed we’d splurge on a fancy dinner one night, but we weren’t entirely sure where we’d go. We did some research, and I managed to get a Twitter poll sent out asking at which restaurant we should attempt to get a table.
Roughly 4 hours before dinner, I called the American Express Platinum Concierge team to request a table for three, that night, at Craig’s in West Hollywood. Craig’s is a traditional American restaurant famous for attracting celebrities and the Hollywood elites. It’s notoriously hard to get a table at Craig’s, and even if you have reservations, there are stories of guests still having to wait. I didn’t think we’d end up getting a table that night.
My hopes were that Craig’s was one of the restaurants in which American Express pre-reserves tables for Platinum and Centurion cardholders. I’m still not sure if this is the case, but somehow, my friends and I got a table right after peak dinner time.
The food was fantastic, and service was quick. It was an added bonus that we received the largest corner booth in the entire restaurant. However, we actually didn’t go for the food or service. We went to spot celebrities. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any celebrities though that’s not to say there weren’t any in the restaurant. We when arrived at the restaurant, paparazzi was outside cameras at the ready.
Overall, it was a very memorable night. I’m someone that’s always enjoyed a little celebrity gossip, so I had always heard about Craig’s in West Hollywood. It was a surreal experience.
Some Notes On Using the Platinum Concierge
These are some very basic (and obvious) notes on using the concierge service. Anything that requires additional payments and charges will go directly to your American Express card on file. The concierge service doesn’t allow you to eat for free and receive free black car service. Also, the amenities listed above aren’t available everywhere, and those are just a taste of the benefits.
Overall, American Express Platinum Concierge
It seems like I keep finding new ways to stretch the benefits of my American Express Platinum card. It truly is a premium travel credit card, and the concierge service confirms that. Each time I’ve used the concierge benefit, I’ve been connected to a representative within five minutes. Each representative has been personable and helpful. Additionally, I’ve yet to have a request go unfulfilled. If you have the American Express Platinum card, my advice is to use the concierge benefit whenever you get the chance. It’s a very underrated benefit.
Have you ever used the American Express Platinum Concierge service? What’s been your experience with the concierge team?
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Absolutely love love love this card. I have been using the airport lounges like crazy, and the FHR deals (especially in Chicago are unreal).
The only thing that didn’t meet my expectations was the concierge service as they failed to secure concert tickets for me twice.
Do you have any direct experience in dealing with their concierge?
I’ve been looking up review for them, and they seem to be mostly positive so I’m wondering if I’m not framing my requests correct.
Concierge Reviews:
https://theshutterwhale.com/blog/2018/9/25/i-just-paid-1712-for-the-platinum-card-from-american-express-heres-why-i-did-it
https://creditcarrots.com/amex-platinum-concierge-review/
https://thepointsguy.com/news/tpg-readers-amex-platinum-concierge/
I had Amex Plat for about 10 years in the UK, but gave it up about 6 years ago.
The service was always excellent, and they were able to do some incredible things. Example, my aged Arabic-only speaking aunt was coming to visit and had a flight cancelled during a stopover. She had no mobile phone and very little travel experience, so we were naturally worried. I called Amex, they took her name and appearance description and sent an arabic speaker to find her in the airport. 20 minutes later they’d found her, put her on the phone, and arranged a hotel for her for the night. Amazing.
However, the day-to-day requests were really only useful if money is no object. Tickets to a sold out concert? No problem sir, but it’s gonna cost you (sometime £300-400 per ticket). Travel arrangement was the same; I was almost always able to book flights and hotels myself at far better prices. I also had top level status with most hotels so booking via Amex gave zero additional benefits.
I was once on a remote Greek island on holiday, bitten alive by bed bugs, air con not working, and thoroughly miserable. At about 2am I called Amex and said how the hell do I get out of here. No problem sir, we’ll work on it and get back to you. 15 minutes later they called back; it’ll be a Helicopter to Athens and private jet back to London. Once I heard the cost I decided waiting until morning was probably bearable!
Overall, Amex Plat can be a life saver if you really NEED something and are prepared to pay whatever it takes. If you just want something and have the time, doing it yourself is normally the better way. The question is therefore how often do you really need something?
Come on, man. Spill the beans. Cost of the concert was ___________?
Each ticket was $99 a piece
What night of the week did you go to Craig’s? It’s not an easy reservation to get, but there are much harder…maybe I’ll try one of those just for kicks! The two times I’ve tried to use the Platinum concierge they’ve proven at best that they are useless, and at worst that they are incompetent. I tried to have them get me a reservation at the French Laundry, but the restaurant (and others like it) have switched to a new system called Tock. In order for them to do it for me they offered to go through and sign up for an account, find an available time, and then make the booking and payment, but that’s what I would do. In this case they provided no added value. The other time, a friend in Paris opened a new shop, so I asked them to send him flowers and a nice bottle of champagne. I gave them a good budget to work with, instructions, etc… I was told it would be taken care of. Nothing every happened. Nothing delivered, no apology–no mention that I ever made a request. With the internet, I’m just as capable, if not more capable, of doing the things that they can do. 15 years ago I can see how it would have been a great asset…now I feel like it’s just another pretend perk.
I use my Centurion RM (similar to Platinum Concierge) about once a week, sometimes more. Mostly for Centurion FHR and Centurion Dining program. Service is variable but overall decent. The biggest perk is that it’s 100% via email.