Archive for Sunday, October 07, 2007
HEY, BIG SPENDER
IF you’re a big spender at Neiman Marcus, you qualify for a white-gold credit card that comes with a rewards program, InCircle, that’s ridiculously rich with incentives. Does anyone actually hit the $1-million mark? Much less the $5-million mark? Neiman’s won’t say. But it’s a brilliant fantasy, not to mention genius marketing.
For $1 million: A custom, one-hour film produced by an Emmy-award winner that draws from photos in your family album and from your home movies; or a portrait taken by Mary McCartney (daughter of Sir Paul) while you stay three nights at London’s Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel; or a nine-night African safari.
For $1.5 million: An 18-karat-gold credit card arrives gratis; or a seven-night stay in a three-bedroom apartment aboard The World, a private yacht with 165 floating condos; or a 2007 Lexus ES 350; or an outdoor Viking kitchen with a grilling lesson from chef Kent Rathbun.
For $2 million: Your live singing performance, backed by an orchestra, band or choir, copied onto 300 CDs; or two weeks in a 16th century French chateau in Dordogne, complete with airfare, housekeeping and local guides; or a custom fur coat made in Italy by Giuliana Teso.
For $2.5 million: A 28-day voyage from Alaska to Asia; or a J. Mendel mink coat trimmed in sable; or five rooms for four nights at the Ritz-Carlton, Cancun, with cooking lessons at the hotel’s Viking culinary center and a home renovation with a full suite of Viking appliances.
For $5 million: A limited-edition 2008 Lexus LS 600h (a V-8 luxury gas-electric hybrid sedan); or a session with experts who help turn your invention idea into a product concept; or a 77-carat, 100-inch chain of diamonds that can convert into several configurations.
- Downey Savings, PFF Bank seized by federal regulators
- Yosemite officials to close more than one-third of Curry Village cabins
- Mailman fails to deliver, becomes local hero
- Surge in unemployment puts California's Inland Empire in tailspin
- Wine buyers are sobered by Wall Street meltdown
- Obama clan in Kenya enjoys reflected glory
- It's bargain season for HDTVs
- Purse strings tighten at Bob Baker's Marionette Theater
- ABC pulls plug on 'Pushing Daisies,' 'Dirty Sexy Money,' 'Eli Stone'
- White extremists lash out over election of first black president
- Napolitano: a border-law enforcer in D.C.?
- Lakers don't want to play down upcoming stretch
- Liberal Hollywood ponders next step in fight for same-sex marriage
- White extremists lash out over election of first black president
- Parity, and hilarity, trump clarity in the BCS
- Poor little Rams have lost their way
- Screen Actors Guild contract impasse could lead to strike
- Militants and military brace for a winter of war in Afghanistan
- President-elect Barack Obama pumps up his economic stimulus proposal
- Malignaggi gets cornered by Hatton in 11th round
