Reader Question: What’s Going On With The Closed American Express Centurion Lounges?

We received a Reader Question on the weekend inquiring about the continuing closure of American Express Centurion Lounges at their worldwide locations.

Remember that you can always email us, send a message via Facebook or use Twitter and include photos too. We’ll try to cover Reader Questions & Comments here several times a week.

American Express has previously published a notice on their website announcing the closure of all Centurion Airport Lounges since  March 21st 2020.

Amex has since kept these lounges closed and is reasoning it with Covid-19 yet most of the other lounges operated by airlines are open again which leads us to believe this is all about cost cutting.

We got a message from Kevin who lives in Las Vegas and he isn’t impressed by American Express continued lack of advertised card perks:

Hi Sebastian:

I contacted you in April about AmEx and their airport club options. I’m still based in Vegas and commute weekly to SFO and PHX.

This whole Centurion Lounge situation has become a nuisance to me since the clubs continue to be closed [here in Vegas they are doing construction].

I feel like Amex isn’t providing any return of what they’re promising their card members. As mentioned before I have the U.S. issued Platinum Card and an ICC issued Centurion. ICC did nothing for me and the U.S. card gave all members useless credits for streaming and cellphone services. any suggestion?

Kevin also included a picture he snapped at Las Vegas McCarran Airport showing the closed Centurion Lounge which – as Amex already stated – will be under construction until sometime in 2021.

You can access American Express website with information about Centurion Lounges here.

Quite frankly this is absolutely ridiculous. They have closed all Centurion Lounges in March and we’re soon reaching half a year of shutting down operations. The C-19 excuse doesn’t stick anymore.

No date is given when the Centurion Lounges will reopen but in the light of things how should they know that so I’m not counting on any Amex lounge being available for quite some time, possibly well into 2021.

I can see why customers like Kevin are angry about this. I downgraded my U.S. charge card to Green for the time being. It really makes no sense whatsoever to give any contribution in form of an annual fee to American Express while they’re still doing a dance around the inflexible travel credit (vastly inferior to Chase CSR) and don’t provide airport services.

All these credits for data services nice and well but that’s not something I pay as personal expense. They should refund part of peoples annual fee because what Amex is doing right now in regards to the airport lounges is simply a farce.

Conclusion

Centurion Lounges are a big part of the Amex Platinum/Centurion benefit portfolio so I can see those who have picked up traveling again to be severely annoyed about the ongoing closure.

You really can’t reason the closure of your entire lounge network with Covid-19 anymore while so many other airline lounges are operational again and have even upgraded the F&B options.

Is American Express doing so badly that the operational costs of these lounges are not in the budget anymore? They still have to pay rent for the space to the airport operator regardless of if they’re open or not. They’re well on the way to become just another penny pinching company.