Amex is passé. There’s a new credit card being flashed by the rich and famous… but there’s a major catch

Wall Street bosses, top lawyers and A-list celebrities don’t use American Express.

There’s a new credit card being launched by the rich and famous, but it’s so exclusive you’ve probably never heard of it.

The average user loses at least $500,000 a year and their net worth is above $28 million – and there’s a big catch: the Atlas Map is by invitation only.

What they get for all their hard-earned money is a modern concierge service that CEO Patrick Mrozowski says is taking the industry by storm.

Fort Knox restaurants like 4 Charles, ITO Omakase and Nobu Malibu are unlocked by this glittering stainless steel card.

Last-minute tickets to Taylor Swift – sold out to mere mortals – are available at your fingertips via the sleek, minimal iPhone app or text-based concierge.

Among the delights that can be rolled out by the concierge are helicopter rides to the airport, front row seats at Wimbledon and hotel upgrades at the Ritz.

Mrozowski previously founded a debit card that earned points. Volume was important in that business, but with Atlas he is chasing customers in thin air.

“The interesting thing about credit cards,” he says, “is that the difference between an average customer and a true premium customer is that the latter is a hundred times more valuable.”

That’s why he doesn’t want to ‘dilute’ services with low-income people and believes that ‘Atlas can become a very big company without many members.’

By the end of last month, they were on their way to reaching 1,000 members. In contrast, there are approximately 100,000 users of the most exclusive Amex Centurion card.

There is no preset spending limit for the Atlas card, meaning that when its wealthy clientele buys a new car or watch, they get a piece of that action through transaction fees. A thousand people who spend $500,000 every month are worth more than 100,000 members who spend just a few thousand in the same period.

Because Atlas uses the VISA payment system, this is also widely accepted.

Mrozowski says another benefit of tapping into the affluent market is protecting its members from the tumult of the global economy.

Soaring inflation in the US has led to a credit card default rate of 3.25 percent – ​​the highest rate since the 2008 global financial crisis. This is a huge red flag for typical lenders, because it means customers who using their credit cards doesn’t refund their money.

But according to Mrozowski, “whether the economy goes up or down, our customer base will continue to have a lot of purchasing power.” In other words, they’re so filthy rich that it doesn’t matter if the economy collapses, they’ll still fly to St. Tropez to buy that new Ferrari.

About 60 percent of concierge services are currently dominated by restaurant reservations.

“The dining portion of the app is like a more curated Resy,” says Mrozowski, and the app will provide a shortlist of the 15 to 20 best restaurants in each city for members to choose from.

In New York City, this includes celebrity favorite spots: Sartiano’s, Rafs and Corner Store.

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds at the Corner Store in Soho, New York, on October 11

And these VIPs and A-listers still love their points. Members earn 3x as many points in the category they spend the most money on (restaurants, hotels, flights) and then redeem them for vacations or airline miles.

“There’s a group of customers who literally don’t know anything about the points, and there’s another group who are obsessed with the points,” Mrozowski says.

When it comes to flights and hotels, the CEO and founder says Atlas can offer its members benefits they can’t get by booking their travel arrangements outside the platform.

“If you book the hotel through Atlas, you often get a room upgrade to multiple categories and we make sure you get a corner room with a beautiful view,” says Mrozowski.

“On the flight side, it just comes down to getting better rates. We can guarantee a better rate than you would see elsewhere.”

When asked who its members are, Mrozowski is guarded on legal grounds, but adds: “You certainly know these people, they are household names.”