News and notes from around the interweb:
- Chinese man earns 422 million Amex points with one purchase. He bought a ceramic cup at auction, and earned a a fairly inflated Chinese American Express points with his Centurion card.
If you ask me, it’s not a very efficient way to earn points — unless he can turn around and re-sell the cup for more than he paid for it net of auction fees. It’s unlikely he’ll go that route, though, considering he didn’t even know his Amex card earned points.
- Purchase by tomorrow and travel between August 1 and September 1 and Virgin America will give you 20% off paid non-refundable main cabin select and first class fares. (HT: Lucky) Not as good as 50% off paid first class, but with the promotion some West Coast first class fares will start at less than $170. And it stacks with their generous new member offer which will net you up to 8000 bonus miles.
- Didn’t realize: the Airspace Lounge in San Diego is open to American Admirals Club members (in addition to American Express Platinum cardholders) and is even staffed with American reservations agents.
- Should travelers avoid flying airlines that have had crashes in the past? (Surprisingly, no.)
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IMHO, a man who can easily spend US $36 million on a ceramic cup usually might not care if he can earn points/miles on his purchase. Centurion card is more like a symbol of status. Once you get your financial freedom, you may also take the points/miles for granted or at least won’t care them as much as you do now 😛
Looks like he bought a ceramic cup AKA he laundered a lot of money — excuse me, skirted the currency restriction laws — with the help of Sotheby’s and the Amex Centurion card…I don’t doubt that both the miles & the cup were a trivial consideration by comparison with the amount of money he’s trying to move out of China. If the Chinese close that loophole they’ve got a slamdunk case against the dude so he’d better have a few airline tickets on hold…
LMFAO! You think a man who have that much spending on his card cares about freaking AMEX points?