Aston Martin On ICE: James Bond For A Day With American Express By Invitation Only

Traveling can be hard enough without having to worry about booking flights, hotels and planning out what or where to eat. If you're the type that's used to the high life or simply prefer to have someone else do the heavy lifting when it comes to making travel plans, then the American Express Platinum card is worth considering. More than just a credit card, I've been finding that the services and benefits included when you have it in your wallet are worth their weight in platinum.

As a frequent traveler, it's not unusual for me to find myself in three different time zones in the same week. In February alone, I clocked 58,000 miles in the air, and many of them I relied on American Express travels to assist with bookings.

Before I get to the real reason why I'm writing this piece, lets just get the benefits and features of being a Platinum Card holder from American Express out of the way. While there's a $450 annual fee, if you're a frequent user then the perks can more than outweigh that.

For instance, using the Platinum card when traveling abroad means you escape foreign transaction fees. There's an annual $200 statement credit for "eligible incidental airline fees": you enroll your airline of choice, and after that charges such as seat upgrades, in-flight food and beverages, luggage fees, airport lounge day passes, and other basic incidentals get credited to your account.

Speaking of airport lounges, one of the biggest draws for me is access to American Express' own Centurion Lounges. Currently found in four airports – Las Vegas (LAS), Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), New York LaGuardia (LGA), and San Francisco (SFO) – and with a fifth, at Miami International Airport, expected to open early this year, I've found them to be the best lounges around.

Given the amount of travel I do, I practically live in airport lounges; they're pretty much my second home. What I like about the Centurion Lounges is that, while each has the same core amenities like free WiFi, comfortable seating, and food, they also have their own unique style that's tied into their location. The San Francisco location, for instance, has a "wall of wine" featuring bottles picked exclusively from local growers.

I've been to all four locations, and rarely did I struggle to find a good location to work. Greeted at the door in the super-busy Las Vegas location, as CES 2015 was winding down, a host made it her number one priority to hunt down a spot for my colleague and I to settle down before our flight. Where most other airport lounges expect you to pay for meals or alcoholic beverages, in Centurion Lounges any dining, wine, or cocktails you have are on the house.

Should you bring your family along on a trip, your spouse and kids – or simply you and two travel companions – are also invited. If you've been keeping tabs on the potential savings, this feature alone is worth at least $400 for anyone who travels five or more times a year, almost covering the annual fee by itself.

Sadly not every airport has a Centurion Lounge, but thanks to a deal between American Express and Delta you can also get access to Delta Sky Clubs and Airspace lounges. A similar agreement with Priority Pass Select Access does the same for its network of more than 600 airport lounges in 100 countries, regardless of the carrier or class you're flying.

Even if you don't have time to stop by a lounge, you can still probably get online. As a card holder you get access to the Boingo American Express Preferred Plan, with free and unlimited Wi-Fi access on up to four devices at more than one-million hotspots worldwide.

For instance, you can receive a statement credit of $100 for Global Entry enrollment. If you opt just to apply for TSA PreCheck, your account will be credited $85 for the application fee if you pay it with your Platinum Card. Here's my advice, though: enroll in the Global Entry program, and you'll automatically get TSA PreCheck too.

Usually the expectation is that you pay off the balance on the card each month, else you incur a late fee of up to $35 (then $35 or 2.99-percent over subsequent billing cycles, whichever is the greater). However, there's a Pay Over Time option should you need to temporarily spread your payments over a longer period.

American Express By Invitation Only: Aston Martin ON ICE

Now we arrive at one of my favorite feature of being an American Express Platinum Card holder: By Invitation Only. It gives Platinum Card and Centurion Card members super exclusive access to a chance-of-a-lifetime experience, from fine dining, sport events, concerts, visual and performing arts, or, in my case, driving Aston Martin's range on a custom-built ice track in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Ever see a kid grin ear to ear on Christmas morning? There were seven attendees (including yours truly) and we all left with semi-permanent smiles lasting for days.

The evening before the drive event, we had dinner at a private residence with our very own chef. Julian Jenkins, President of the Americas for Aston Martin, was in attendance, and to my surprise he spent the entire day with us on the track.

NOTE: This event is the condensed version of Aston Martin's three day program with a price of $9,999 for a driving guest and $2,499 for a non-driving guest. The American Express By Invitation Only event normally costs $1,700 which included one night of hotel accommodation. I was invited to participate in the American Express Ambassador Program; as such the trip was paid for by American Express, but I went through the process of booking in order to experience the Platinum Card service experience.

To book this trip, I called the number on the back of the Platinum card and was forwarded to the group at American Express that handles By Invitation Only bookings. Once I secured a spot and paid for the event, I was then transferred to American Express Travels to book my flight and transportation from the airport to the hotel and back.

The day started like any track event, with safety and details about the course. The full track is broken down into multiple sections, giving different opportunities not only to hear the cars roar, but to learn some valuable ice driving skills.

Besides having a blast driving between four and six hundred horsepower rear-wheel-drive cars with a choice of V8 to V12 engines, really the primary purpose is to help participants test and hone their skills in braking / cornering loops, slaloms, and skid pads carved into the snow on the mile-long track.

I started out on the slalom, which takes place across a long stretch of snowy plain. It's packed with ice, and ends with a long right-turn corner. The challenge starts out relatively easy – you speed up from a standing start, then brake hard and try to keep the car under control – but then escalates into braking then steering into the corner, and finally trail-braking into the turn and hitting the gas to exit the corner.

Putting it all together, the idea is that these core skills will be essential later, when you're driving on the full track. The instructors push you to accelerate faster and faster, without tire spinning out of control. Keep in mind that these are full blown British beasts with no shortage of horsepower.

The key to success is to trust the ABS brakes. Yes, that means pressing down hard on the brake pedal and holding on for dear life. Well, perhaps not quite that dramatic, but you get the point. Imagine peaking at 45 mph on a slippery slope and, on command, you're expected to slam on the brakes expecting a 565-horsepower V-12 to nicely slow down.

To my relief, that's exactly what happened in the Vantage S I was driving, while its relatively short wheelbase helped keep it agile when taking corners.

"Slow is fast...and remember to steer with the gas pedal."

Next up was the skidpad, where the challenge is to keep your head and eyes pointed where you want the car to go or end up. It's a whole lot easier said than done, trust me, especially when you're trying not to skid a luxuriously-powerful Rapide S 4-door sedan into the nearest snow drift. After a long lesson on the balance between understeer and oversteer, it was my turn.

Instructor explanation – Paul Gerrard

Aston Martin ON ICE Skidpad Exercise: Me behind the wheel!

Finally came my time on the full track, putting together all of the lessons I'd learned. Acceleration, stomping on the brakes hard and on the throttle even harder, pedal steering, trail braking, balancing over- and understeer and, most importantly, having a blast.