MEAB wrote about the JAL premium card back in October. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but now that I’ve ramped up my Visa/MC spend, I went and applied for the card for both myself and P2. The most interesting aspect about the card is that if you spend $450K on the card, then you’ll get JAL Global Club Three star status FOR LIFE, which gets you Oneworld Sapphire status for life. The opportunity cost of doing this is essentially 1% for me since I have been MS’ing on a 1% card, so that’s about $4,500 cash. I’m sure if you ask people in this game whether they’d pay $4500 to be Sapphire for life, I’m sure they’d do it.
Naturally this is a huge shutdown risk by FNBO, but I hear they are tolerant of MS’ers. Plus, I’ve never had an FNBO card in my life and I wouldn’t miss them if they banned me. Since I only got a 7.5K CL but P2 got a 12.5K CL, I’ll do hers first. I think it’ll take about 5 months to accomplish this, so I’ll let you know how it plays out in 5-6 months.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Oneworld status allow you to take your spouse/companion into a permissible lounge? If so, why do both of you?
Isnt there a cost of MS/VISA card fees which is $7.95/500 i.e. around $5350 or so unless there is trick of getting gift cards for free or something.