The Black Card | Centurion Card | Visa Black Card | Luxury Credit Cards

So you never would have guessed, but not long ago–close to the end of the summer in August–a new club opened up targeting none other than holders of The Black Card. The appeal of the black card brand is no surprise for targeting club-goers might come as no surprise to you, but what about the fact that The Black Card Ultralounge opened up in none other than Scottsdale, AZ?

I have got to be honest: I don’t know all that much about Scottsdale, or AZ, other than the fact that there are lots of canyons, cliffs and hippies existing in Arizona. However, when the glitzy and aesthetic club opened its doors on Saturday, August 16, 2008, the owners of the establishment were definitely aiming for older and more upscale visitors.

The venue space was previously known as “Taste Ultra Lounge,” before it was bought out by Las Vegas Entertainment Group (LVEG). Typically, LVEG buys out struggling bars and clubs, so ironically enough they’ve taken a club space and picked it up from rags to riches.

The club’s owner, Ed Pope, has a Centurion of his own, of course. When asked about the concept of the club, Pope said, “We were just looking at it and we realized what the card stands for is what we want this club to be about.” The club has a maximum occupancy of 615 and is in an affluent neighborhood, in close proximity to other upscale businesses.

The club has been remodeled to a modern but dark sketchbook theme. The DJs at the club play everything from hip-hop to top-40 to mash-ups and house.

Of course the upscale club has an upscale dress-code; however, exceptions are made so long as the untraditional dress-code clothing such as t-shirts and sneakers are with proper labels: Ed Hardy, Diesel, Louis Vuitton, Moschino, and so on. If it’s made by an expensive enough designer then it will probably be acceptable. However, this must mean that the club’s bouncers are aware of the latest fashions and have the ability to distinguish real designer labels from knock-offs. One would hope, anyway.

Last, the VIP section of the club is blocked off with a wrought-iron railing, and of course a Black AMEX must be presented in order to gain entry past the rail. However, due to the small portion of people actually in possession of Black Cards in Scottsdale, AZ, the club allows members to purchase a $1,000 membership to the VIP section. With the membership comes a black metal card with a serial number on it, embossed with a crown, stars and Gothic script, which comes in a black faux-leather wallet.

Pope has already made a name for himself in the California bar scene and has plans to open up eight other clubs in the Valley, with hopes of taking the Centurion card concept to New York, MIami, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Jason Boyer, managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald (Hong Kong) Capital Markets Ltd., pulled a matt- black American Express Co. card from his wallet and clinked it against a wine glass.

“Look at this thing, feel the weight of it: pure titanium. Indestructible,” said Boyer, 39, the biggest buyer at Hong Kong’s first wine auction in a decade. “If I die in a plane crash, this thing would survive me.”

05/13/1988
The Wall Street Journal
(Copyright (c) 1988, Dow Jones & Co., Inc.)

AN AMERICAN EXPRESS black card?

It was the ultimate in plastic — while it lasted, which wasn’t long, because so many of its holders found it easy to leave home without it.

The card was held by an ultra-select group of consumers who numbered fewer than 1,000 around the world. As a complement to their garden-variety American Express credit cards, it offered services as freebies.

Suppose, for example, on a 3-o’clock-in-the-morning whim, you decided to book a round-the-world trip; American Express would accommodate you with a travel service staffed 24 hours a day. In the market for a red 1965 Ferrari? If you were a black-card holder, American Express would kick tires in the world’s fanciest used-car lots. If you remembered in Singapore that you had left your favorite suit in a Hong Kong penthouse, the company would arrange to fetch it.

After a trial that lasted nearly four years, American Express abandoned the card in 1987. “It just wasn’t worth keeping it up,” says Lee Middleton, a company spokesman.

The card was never advertised. It was unobtainable by a large part of the world’s population, among them poor people and Americans. The card was given only to clients who had what Mr. Middleton calls a “substantial banking relationship” with American Express Bank Ltd., the New York parent of American Express’s bank subsidiaries in Switzerland. Because the Bank Holding Company Act kept the bank from doing business with Yanks, the card went only to rich foreigners.

While the card offered high-class ID for check-cashing, and free services, nothing could actually be charged on it. For charges, the card-holders were billed on their platinum- or gold- or green-card accounts.

Clients who did use their black cards got highly personal treatment. So few were the users that when they phoned American Express the “people at the other end of the phone would know who they were dealing with,” says Mr. Middleton. Typical chores included dispatching limousines or helicopters for clients, booking their vacations and finding medical care in exotic places. But Mr. Middleton says the platinum card, which didn’t exist when the black card was introduced, now offers “about 95%” of the black card’s services.

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Ms. Rothman is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau.