platinum card

Sometime early last year American Express cut off my corporate card because I didn't pay the thing on time. The bastards. I didn't mind that much to be honest, I never found them helpful or useful. Their call centre staff (whom I only had to talk to when I hadn't done my expenses on time) were usually snide and annoying, and they pissed me off lots. I used my own credit card from then on. Fast forward to December... Virgin Atlantic sent out a mailing to their gold card members (thats me!) proclaiming "Guaranteed Approval" to the Amex Platinum Card. I read through it, saw that it was Amex, and that the card was going to cost £200 a year, and promptly started to crumple it up for the bin. Then something caught my eye... 25000 frequent flyer miles if you applied for (and were accepted) the card. I simply HAD to do that... twenty five thousand miles wasn't to be scoffed at :-) So, I sent the application away, and forgot about it. You can imagine how surprised I was when The Card arrived in the post a few weeks later! Initially I wasn't that impressed with the card... it was simply a debit card with a high annual rate and some pretty good travel insurance. It also had a certain mystique... the kind that only comes with a card which is usually only given to those earning more than £100,000 a year. There are other benefits too... they have a service called Concierge, where they do things like source flowers & chocolates & travel and tickets etc. So I decided to put them to the test... and see if they could get tickets for me to see Dido on Thursday. They said they'd call me back and let me know how it goes. I have to say though, the treatment the platinum people give you is very very different from the treatment the green card people dish out ;-) Love it :-)