Platinum card
January 8th, 2005
I always thought that I was special, but now I know I am. For today in the post I received an invitation for… (fanfare) an American Express Platinum Card. Wow.
Normally my actual-reality spam filters disregard this sort of thing instantly, but somehow the idea of a Platinum Card nestling in my wallet teased at my attention, and so I saved it from immediate consignment to the recycling.
As I read through their bumph my sceptical frown gradually changed into a kind of eyebrows raised, lips pursed expression that is internationally recognised as meaning "not bad". For instance, travel insurance for 4 is covered including various extreme sport style activities. Hello, I thought, that sounds like the kind of lifestyle I’d like to have, but just as a scheming marketing exec, surveilling me from the AMEX observation eerie atop their head office not two miles hence was starting to rub her hands together in anticipation the commission, I experienced a reality check.
The reality check said that they weren’t offering anything I was actually likely to ever need, and that I should probably look out for some kind of annual fee, and then it added that I was an idiot for allowing myself to be seduced – even just a little bit – by something as transparently status oriented as a platinum credit card. Reality can be so rude sometimes. And also annoyingly right: membership is £275 a year, and so with a Yorkshire shudder I sent it on it’s way to the pulping mill.