The Engineer Who converted 12,100 Cups Of Pudding to 1.25 Million Air Miles
My story isn't nearly as extreme, but I'm still pretty proud of it.Three years ago, there was a LivingSocial deal with a headline to the effect of "$10,000 for one night in the SF Fairmont Penthouse Suite." In a moment of "who would buy this?!," I of course read the whole thing, and the offering was impressive -- it included monogrammed Tiffany table settings for 20 or something, and the suite had a helipad accessible via bookcase-door -- but nothing I'd ever spend my money on.At the bottom of the blurb, LS mentioned an alternative offer -- "$2000 for a night in the Presidential Suite." In reading that, the last bullet point read "plus Fairmont Platinum Status for Life." Now that, I thought, might actually be a good deal.Fairmont Platinum gives you a night free, 10 nights of suite upgrades, 10 nights of room upgrades, $100 in spa/dining certificates, and a few other things each year. I'm a young guy, so the math is fairly compelling when you add this up over a lifetime. So I redeemed the deal and posted the opportunity on the frequent flyer forums for Fairmont, where many of Fairmont's best customers lurk, and they quickly snapped up dozens of the deals, leading to Fairmont/LivingSocial putting a freeze on it.Apparently the "for life" bit had been an error, and they meant "for one year." But now they had some of their best customers, people who often earned their Platinum status anyway, encouraging them to honor it. After taking a weekend to think it over, Fairmont decided to honor the deal, and I've been a Fairmont Plat ever since.I used the actual night in the suite to throw a surprise engagement party, and it was pretty amazing. Since then, my wife and I have stayed in suites on the cheap in Sonoma, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and we actually spent 5 nights in an oceanfront suite on Hawaii for $129/night (the AAA rate for the suite was $1200/night). And we get lots of nice perks along the way.Like I said, it's no 4MM miles for $4000, but for doing next to no work, it'll be a nice perk that my family and I will hopefully take advantage of for decades to come.