A long-time traveler amassed an astonishing number of flights with his lifetime ticket, ultimately costing American Airlines $21 million, leading the airline to revoke his pass.
Back in 1981, American Airlines presented travel enthusiasts with an incredible opportunity: lifetime first-class tickets for anyone ready to shell out $250,000 upfront.
However, the airline didn’t anticipate the extent to which one traveler would utilize the pass to its fullest potential. Forget the trending trash bag ‘life hack’ or a passenger’s reclining seat trick, this individual surpassed them all.
The $250,000 AAirpass offered ‘unlimited first-class travel for life,’ valid not just in the US but worldwide. Additionally, for an extra $150,000, travelers could bring a companion on their journeys.
While $250,000—or $350,000 with the companion pass—is a hefty sum, for a frequent first-class traveler planning extensive travel over a lifetime, it seemed a valuable investment for passengers, albeit not for the airline.
American Airlines soon realized they had underestimated the potential impact, discontinuing the AAirpass by 1994. By then, Luxury Launches reports that 28 people had taken up the offer.
Among those was Steven Rothstein, who acquired the pass in 1987 and fully exploited it for 21 years, incurring over $21 million in costs for American Airlines.
Curious about how many flights he took? The number is staggering.
Rothstein accumulated an impressive 30 million miles as a first-class passenger with American Airlines, booking a total of 10,000 flights.
Reddit users have analyzed this further.
One user calculated: “21 yrs X 365 days in a year = 7665 That means he took more than one flight every day in that time frame. Sheesh.”
The exact number of flights he completed is unknown, but even a fraction of the 10,000 booked is remarkable.
American Airlines revoked Rothstein’s pass in 2008, prompting him to sue for breach of contract. The airline countered, claiming he had ‘fraudulently used’ the pass’s companion feature by booking extra seats under fake names, his daughter shared with The Guardian.
The court ultimately sided with American Airlines, leaving Rothstein without his lifetime pass, but with nearly a lifetime of travel memories.
Steven’s daughter, Caroline Rothstein, shared the poignant reason behind her father’s booking of around 2,000 ’empty’ seats over the years.
Inquiring why he did this, Steven explained it was a way to cope with the 2002 death of his teenage son, Josh, Caroline’s brother, who passed away at 15 after being struck by a car.
Steven recounted: “When everyone was asleep in the house, and I had nobody to talk to, and I was lonely about Josh’s death, I would telephone American Airlines reservations and speak to the agents about who knows what for an hour, and then at the end, they’d ask me, oh, what reservation was I calling about to make, and I would say, ‘Oh yeah, I need to go to San Francisco next week’.
“I really didn’t need to go to San Francisco. I was just very confused and very lonely, and I was calling American Airlines because they were logical people for me to speak to. They knew me. I knew them. I knew their names. I knew their lives.”