Last week I received an e-mail from Chase inviting me into their ‘exclusive on line community‘. This week, I received an e-mail from Amex to join ‘Community @Amex‘. I assumed that the invitation was based on having the Platinum Card® from American Express, so I was surprised to see that when I looked more closely at the “Account ending in -0000′ it was triggered by my Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express.

At first I thought maybe this was targeted, but when I went to join, I was redirected to another Community @Amex site that looks less targeted.

Community @Amex

So I decided to join and I was, uh, bemused at the wide variety of topics being discussed by my new Community.  There are quite a few threads questioning if the Platinum Card® from American Express was worth the $450 annual fee, but then there were also these active threads:

• Thanksgiving: Dressing in the turkey or out of the turkey? (17 replies)
• Anyone ever been on a cruise ship? Was it fun? (15 replies)
• Halloween! (35 replies)

Bottom Line

On my first visit to Community @Amex I didn’t really find anything that would make me want to come back.  I also question the value that Community @Amex adds to their credit card programs, or even to the internet in general as there are great bulletin board sites that are better organized and more specific to a particular topic.  Community @Amex is a bit too random for me.  Has anyone else joined, and what do you think?