Man Buys $65 Million Skyscraper With A Credit Card, Earns $1.3 Million

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Man Buys $65 Million Skyscraper With A Credit Card, Earns $1.3 Million

by Gary Leff on March 11, 2024

A man claims he purchased a skyscraper using his credit card. He points out that the card he was using offers a 1% discount on purchases, and gives him 30 days to pay “which is worth 1%.”

For these calculations to be right, this would have to have taken place in the late 1980s – when interest rates were still high, but after cash back cards were first introduced. While interest rates in the U.S. haven’t hit 12% since 1979, they hit 12% last in Canada in the early 1990s shortly after cash back cards were introduced there.

What’s remarkable is,

- The seller was willing to take a credit card. While card acceptance for many retail businesses is cheaper than cash, a funds transfer for a single large transaction is going to be less expensive than credit cards – by a lot.

- This likely means that he could have just as easily negotiated a lower sales price. That is not always more advantageous.

- Today he could have earned 2% back plus the float!

At 2 transferrable points per dollar, $65 million would translate to 130,000,000 points. That actually just makes him a piker. … Delta has a $1.2 billion credit line on its corporate American Express used to charge jet fuel. And a Chinese billionaire earned 2 billion Membership Rewards points buying a ceramic tea cup at auction which was almost certainly a money laundering scheme to get funds out of mainland China, and that was in an inflated Amex points program (so it was really ‘only’ a $170 million purchase).

(HT: Hans Mast)