I remember this from several years ago in the UK.
Extreme example of an 'Ozbargainer'!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/banana-economics-buy-942lb…
Anyone got any better ones.
Extreme OzBargaining
cooperdog on 09/05/2014 - 12:34
Comments
There was this Chinese guy who would buy a first class ticket to access airline lounge and eat there. Then at end of the day he would re-schedule his ticket to a later date.
I don't eat alone. Take a friend along. Can be non-traveller.
There was a guy, not sure of his ethnicity, but he would buy a first class ticket and sit at the airline lounge to get free food, he would then reschedule his flight free of charge, he did this for a year. So in essence, he achieved free first class food for a year, the only opportunity cost that was given up was the time he had to have spent on the phone to customer service about rescheduling his flight, which is time well worth it for free first class food.
the only opportunity cost?
think you're also forgetting:
-Time and cost of getting to the airport every time he wanted to eat
-parking costs at the airport
-opportunity cost of buying the first class ticket
(the first two costs surely void the supposed benefits of the 'deal' - but i do love free first class airline fod…)Well this myth purportedly happened in China so he would have taken the train. Maybe he was a pensioner with nothing better to do with his time. As for the opportunity cost, it's only the ongoing interest on the amount of the ticket.
Anyway the airline commented in regard to the myth that they charge for rebooking so that wasn't free as claimed.
I thought the airline prohibites rescheduling the flight after checking in, instead of charging for rescheduling first class tickets. Unfortunately boarding pass is required to enter the lounge.
Well the story is a myth..
decryption earned around 1 million FF points by making loads of 1 and 2c transactions.
Woolworths 50 points each time you buy an item. Guy bought loads of cat food, donated to a shelter and ending up earned thousands of Everyday Rewards Points.
Watch the movie Punch-drunk Love. It involves a similar kind of story and is a fantastic movie to boot.
Reminds me of this time a chinese guy bought a first class ticket, loaded up on free lounge food, and rescheduled his flight.
You don't say ;)
I watched a movie the other day, The Terminal, about a man stranded at the airport… which kind of reminds me of this Chinese guy who bought a first class ticket, ate free at the lounge, then rescheduled his flight for the next day. He managed to repeat for a whole year before being caught.
reading these comments kinda reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day, which had nothing to do with a Chinese guy who bought a first class ticket, ate at airline lounges, then rescheduled his flight.
My favourite is this guy who racked up almost 1.3 million air miles (valued at over $150,000) by buying around $3000 of pudding cups, at 25c a cup. He then enlisted Salvation Army volunteers to peel off the labels for redemption, in exchange for donating the pudding to them. That's what I call Extreme Ozbargaining…
http://gizmodo.com/how-an-engineer-earned-1-25-million-air-m…
mmmmm…pudding!! Couldn't he just have bought a 1st class airline ticket then eaten all of those puddings at the airline lounge before rescheduling his ticket?
He bought the cheap puddings to give him the points to buy the first class ticket that gave him access to first class pudding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur) :)
You're forgetting that he also claimed the donations as a tax deduction, meaning it cost him even less (and did a good deed in the process).
What about the guy who used his NAB Platinum Visa card to gamble on very low-risk bets?
Some credit cards don't treat gambling purchases as cash advances, which don't earn points, but rather as actual purchases – which then count towards points and also qualify for the interest-free period on most cards.
Abeyant maxed out his card's $30,000 credit limit to buy $30,000 dollars of credit in a CentreBet account.
He then redrew on his home loan to pay off his credit card and dump more money into CentreBet, until his account balance was up to around $200,000.
Then it was just a matter of finding extremely low-risk bets to place the money on – bets which were close to being 'even money'.
"The night before the (2010 Federal) election I put the $200,000 on ALP (Julia Gillard) to retain the federal seat of Lalor paying $1.01 for every $1 bet," Abeyant said.
With Julia Gillard retaining her seat, this safe bet delivered 132,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points plus a bonus $2000 in winnings – at which point Abeyant withdraw his funds from CentreBet to pay off his home loan again.
"I've done this over a number of elections; both state, federal and US Presidential," he explained.
"US election betting basically goes on whether the Democrats or Republicans will win a particular state. So far I've amassed close to 550,000 points in just over 2 years just from this particular strategy."
Imagine how crazy it would be if, somehow, the bet lost. It is, after all, gambling.
$200,000 bye bye.
i had a friend at work lose a lot of money doing this on the gold coast suns beating port adelaide a couple of seasons back, he thought it was a safe bet too!
Hes safe now though
There is a similar story about two guys dumping ~$100k on Aus to win at very short odds after they posted about 430 in a one dayer against South Africa (which was the highest score ever) but SA came out and chased it down.
I read the banana story regarding points offers that contain more value than the goods purchased.
I did something similar with a flybuys offer but I was only able to make about $3 on it. Flybuys knew they were offering more points than some of the eligible products were worth so they set a limit that you could only take up the offer twice.
People please don't repost that urban legend about the Chinese guy who ate at airline lounges then rescheduled his flight.