Why you should avoid the Amex Platinum / The Hospital Club pop-up lounge in Covent Garden

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• Polly says:

  25 Nov25 November 05:13

  Well there goes our plans for next Friday evening in London…lucky you could warn us Rob…what a misleading email from platinum then…was always too good to be true!

  • Alan says:

    25 Nov25 November 08:04

    Yep, the one time I was potentially going to make use of the always London-based Amex Platinum offer too!!

• Kevin says:

  25 Nov25 November 05:59

  I did get in yesterday afternoon. There were plenty of staff and the room was fairlybsizeable for just 75 guests but there would not be enough seating for everybody. There was no bar menu that I could see and the food offerings were mostly sweet. They may have had some sandwiches but these were not on display when I arrived. I think they had run out.

  I wouldn’t return.

• Alex W says:

  25 Nov25 November 06:52

  Very glad I didn’t make a special trip to London for this yesterday!

• Neil Renilson says:

  25 Nov25 November 07:07

  Good job they don’t let their marketing/pr people anywhere near the actual financial department !

• Paul says:

  25 Nov25 November 07:21

  We were definitely one of the lucky ones. I had a strong suspicion it would fill out fast and so got there for around half 4. There was a small queue after the cloakroom and slowly people in front of us started to walk away (I think I spotted you Raffles !). The staff were explaining about the 6pm fashion event talk and how they were trying to clear the venue to allow 60 new people to go in. We thought we’d wait it out a few more minutes and soon found ourselves at the front of the queue. At just after 5 the manager came out and apologised for the wait and offered to bring us drinks to have in the corridor ! But just as she was taking our order some of us were allowed in.

  Once inside, the champagne was free flowing and the cocktails were very good. The staff and service were excellent.

  I tried to pay attention for the 6pm talk but only a handful of people at the front gave it any notice. The writing on the slides was shockingly small for a professional presentation !

  I had not been to the hospital club before but the venue for the event was a lot smaller than I imagined it to be given the amount of promotion and number of cardholders it would likely attract. Anyway, same time next Friday !

• Yvonne M says:

  25 Nov25 November 07:40

  I arrived with a colleague around three and found the lounge already relatively busy.

  The venue looked great and the many staff were very helpful.

  Various emoyees were giving misleading information towards five telling us to leave and return at six (no thanks) or that fizz and canapés started at fivenobify knew what was happening.

  We simply stayed put, they decided not to make anyone leave and we were rewarded with a grand total of theee canapés, all delicious but they hadn’t catered for the room they were dealing with.

  I’m guessing as word spreads it will be harder to get in during the day as well.

• George says:

  25 Nov25 November 08:34

  I think there are serious problems with the Amex Platinum ‘social’ offerings. I rang up recently to book places to meet Santa at the Royal Albert Hall (for my kids, not me….). Apparently the new system Amex has in place ‘to make it fair for all card members’, is that you get placed on a waiting list and then if you’re successful you get sent tickets. If you are not successful you hear nothing further. Success depends on whether you’ve had tickets to events before (although quite how they’re going to check this I don’t know).

  None of this was set out in the Amex email not in the terms and conditions of the offer, but the guy at Platinum concierge was insistent and even checked with his manager.

  Obviously, it is good to share things out amongst card members, but they said tickets could be sent out as late as 3 days before the event. Seriously – how unrealistic is that? That as a family you have to block out a weekend day in the hope that a few days before tickets might come through the post? And, given they charge £70pp for no-shows, if the tickets go missing in the post then the first you’ll know about it is when £100+ gets put on your account.

  I think it’s a shambles.

  • Fenny says:

    25 Nov25 November 09:31

    They’re clearly not interested in anyone coming from out of town!

  • Waribai says:

    25 Nov25 November 09:40

    Yes, ditto. I am on the ‘wishlist’ for the 0930 slot of Santa’s Grotto. The first agent said, you will hear in the next 7 days if you have been successful. The second agent said you will hear between 5-10 days before the event if you have been successful. Clearly you have been told yet another time period of possibly 3 days before the event!. Surely, they cannot charge you for a no show in these circumstances!
    We were lucky enough to get tickets for the Cbeebies Christmas panto filming of the Snow Queen earlier this month for which tickets were given out after a draw. 1000 tickets were allocated via a draw to 300000 applicants. However, even with those logistics we were given 14 days advanced notice that we had been successful!

    • Waribai says:

      25 Nov25 November 09:41

      “I am on the ‘wishlist’ for the 0930 slot of Santa’s Grotto.”

      Slight correction, I mean ‘we’ as a family are on the wishlist (honestly!)

• IslandDweller says:

  25 Nov25 November 08:59

  But thanks for your tweet yesterday. I was on a train heading for the venue when I read it. Allowed me and my friends to divert and not waste time at the door.
  Amex do seem to have made a pigs ear of this…..

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