Pursuits

Collector Gets 422 Million AmEx Points With $36 Million Cup

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By Frederik Balfour

July 18, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

A Chinese collector who bought an ancient Chinese ceramic cup for a record HK$281 million (US$36 million) at auction in April got an unexpected bonus when he paid for it today: almost 422 million American Express points.

Liu Yiqian, who used his Centurion Card to pay for the cup from Sotheby’s Hong Kong, hadn’t even thought about the rewards until he was contacted by Bloomberg News.