A few years back I paid a VERY LARGE tax bill using AMEX. They would not approve the charge until they had the $$ wired directly from my bank in advance.

I'd like to ask this poster whether he still thinks that his expected turndown from Amex on the 180G is also illegal, actionable discrimination. This is the position that he seemed to be assuming about his inability to land a Centurion card when he started the thread in the Amex forum http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=357490&page=1 :rolleyes:

This is a very good point that shouldn't be overlooked. If a promo looks too good to be true, read the fine print. It probably is too good to be true. Rule number one when dealing with any financial institution is The House Always Wins. They aren't going to set up some promotion that allows the players to extract an unlimited profit. Sure, they might throw ya a little bone once in a while - like a 5000 mile bonus - but somehow I doubt they will let you do funny things with the float on a couple hundred thousand dollars on your Delta Amex.

April 2004 - Starwood
 

If memory serves me, AmEx/Starwood had a promo this year for about a month where if you were paying Federal 1040 tax you would earn double points up to 4000 additional points. Assuming you already had 12 Starwood points, and you took advantage of this offer, your Starwood balance would go to 20,000 points at a service fee cost of two and a half percent = $100.
If you then took advantage of the Brittish Airways offer for double miles from Starpoints and converted the 20,000 Starpoints you would get the 25% bump from Starwood and end up with 50,000 British Airways miles, enough for an ecomomy ticket to Europe.