r/CaughtMyEye • u/detectiverobert • 1d ago

In 1987, Steve Rothstein bought a lifetime unlimited first-class American Airlines pass for $250,000. He took over 10,000 flights, costing the airline an estimated $21 million. In 2008, American Airlines terminated his pass, accusing him of fraud for booking flights under fake names.

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39

u/Wonderful_Pomelo95 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's over 1.3 flights per day for 21 years straight. Either this man was a lunatic that lived a nightmare lifestyle, or this numbers are not right

51

u/Agitated_Winner9568 1d ago

One of the things he did is booking seats in multiple planes departing the same day at different times so he could come to the airport at any time and have a plane ready.

Unlike economy, airlines don’t overbook first class so it was a massive loss for them to have empty seats because of him.

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u/Ashmizen 1d ago

I think that is probably worse than the fake names.

If it’s unlimited then unlimited is fine but like a buffet you have to eat what you order.

Ordering multiple seats flying at the same time is impossible and clearly fraud.

6

u/Hammy_cashews 1d ago

its not fraud if it isn't written into the contract.

if that was fraud they wouldn't have let him do it for 20 years before catching him on the other thing.

They knew it was a huge loss for them because they tried buying it back from him multiple times over the years i saw in a different article.

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u/StayTheFool 1d ago

See? That's pretty dumb. This story is definitely cherry picked in favor of the guy

2

u/Zeppelanoid 1d ago

Sounds like he did everything he could to piss off the airline and they eventually got him on a technicality

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u/Moist_Ordinary6457 1d ago

Not difficult, I'll never be on AA's side

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u/jollydoody 1d ago

Oh they most certainly have overbooked first class. Maybe not as common but I’ve seen it and when privilege + expectations meet not everyone gets a seat, Lordy do people get angry.

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u/HotDerivative 1d ago

Just was reading about folks getting booted off Polaris during boarding because they oversold.

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u/johnnyslick 1d ago

Yeah I think it’s more the case that an 80 seat plane will have more instances of overbooking the 74 coach and business class seats than the 6 first class ones. If there are 7 people expecting to fly in 6 seats in first class they might not even put that on the boarding screen (and just call that person to the reception desk personally). Also of course first class gets booked at a different rate than other classes and a plane that’s sold out in coach might well not be sold out in first class.

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u/ellefleming 1d ago

But he still didn't do anything actually illegal. Did he outthink them? Yes. Did he break his contract? No.

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u/dethskwirl 1d ago

he did. he was allowing people to use his free guest pass without him also flying on the same plane. that was the rule that he broke and they got him on.

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u/SueForPeas 1d ago

You’ve read the contract?

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u/ellefleming 1d ago

Yup. Nope. 😔

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u/legal_stylist 1d ago

The courts did it for us. Moreover, look at the filings in the lawsuit. He didn’t deny that he broke the contract—his argument (rejected, by the way) is that because they tolerated his various violations of the contract thereby inducing his reliance on the new terms such that they should be estopped from enforcing the original terms, or, in the alternative, that the course of performance between the parties supplanted the agreement’s original terms.

As you might imagine, this argument didn’t work and the matter was settled whereby he gave up his pass and received nothing.
There’s no debate he broke the contract.