In 1987 Steve Rothstein bought a $250,000 AAirpass from American Airlines, allowing unlimited first-class travel. He took over 10,000 flights, costing the airline $21 million, leading to the pass’s termination in 2008 due to alleged misuse.
by TheGhost5322
36 Comments
Sounds like he used the pass correctly….
No way this would have held up in court
That’s one way to phrase the story, if you’re an airline executive..
That’s 250 flights a year!
The “all you can eat buffet” conundrum. If you offer an “unlimited” product you better factor in that some people will actually use it.
In every other scenario it’s “caveat emptor” in favor of the business selling the product to a stupid consumer. Seems only fair that a smart consumer should get the win sometimes even if it hurts the business.
Sounds like he got his money’s worth.
Wasn’t the misuse something like him booking flights, using the 1st class lounge for a meal then not actually flying? Feel like I saw that when this was mentioned before.
10,000 flights! That’s like a flight a day for 27 years! Dude was taking the absolute piss…
Airlines when they offer a service, and someone uses it.
https://i.redd.it/1kpkzxhdj5hg1.gif
If I remember correctly, at the end of 90s, every company stopped offering any type of unlimited service and food, because people used it beyond the point where companies didn’t think people would use it. Afterwards, mile points was implemented.
The guy bought a regular pass and a companion. He’d offer to take people on the companion and charged them a cheaper rate than a normal ticket. He’d also book the companion under fake names and leave the seat empty. So he sued the airline, and they sued him in return. Airline went bankrupt and settled. He’d also book a ton of flights that he never used.
Googling the definition of unlimited right now
Did it really cost them $21 million or was that why they retail do his tickets were? Like, how many times was it a booked flight they had to turn down a customer who would have paid that full cost? If it wasn’t full, how much did it really cost them?
it’s also become a timeless PR piece for American Airlines, going on 30 years now. well worth the $21m
Mark Cuban had one too
Did anyone else buy one of those passes?
https://preview.redd.it/eucp0blfk5hg1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15de59b98b6ec6a888442fb0dbab8b47ffbbca2c
Mark Cuban also famously bought these passes before he owned a private jet. He said it was a great deal and got his money’s worth out if them.
How does someone have time (and energy) to get on 10K flights??
$25 a flight … free beer and leg room.. Win
Last name checks out
How can you abuse an unlimited service? He used it much more than unlimited?
I guess it’s one of those situations where they didn’t think through what they offered.
So he had the pass for 19 years and there are 6,935 days in 19 years. This dude was basically averaging 1.5 flights per day, every day for 19 years.
United did the same too, they made their guy a mascot of sorts and he’s done like 21 million miles in the air.
This was the termination letter that they sent him –
[https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/353158-rothstein-termination-letter/](https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/353158-rothstein-termination-letter/)
Bro single handedly caused global warming 💀
>21 million dollars
Yeah right….
He would have been a great case study of the effect of high altitude radiation on cancer rates.
There’s a fascinating long read article in the Guardian paper written by his daughter.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/19/american-airlines-aairpass-golden-ticket
They derserve it tbh. Just last night, my flight home was cancelled. After waiting at the airport for 8 hours through 4 delays. First they said maintainance, then they had no crew, then another crew was due to arrive, then the crew timed out, which they should have expected. The sheer incompetence.
He didn’t COST them that much, he got what he paid for. And that’s just the rough cost of what those tickets would’ve been worth had they been filled by a passenger who paid full price. Those planes were flying anyway and It’s unlikely that all of the first class seats would’ve always been filled by another passenger at full cost. So really what this kinda was, was prepaying for a ton of economy class tickets but with a guaranteed upgrade.
That’s only true, if all first class seats were fully booked on each an every flight he took.
And it’s not “cost” as in expense its “missed revenue”. If the seat was unsold, the plane would have flown anyways and the airline still wouldn’t have made that money.
There was a guy who did this with delta. He could still accrue miles from the flights, for which he would purchase additional hotels rooms and tickets for family.