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.

[u/detectiverobert]

[u/Legionatus]

This story is usually presented as picking on the little guy.

This character booked hundreds of flights in advance that he didn't even take because he "loved flying" and wanted them available. American was paying a ton of money for empty seats and this guy's eccentricity.

[u/RoutineCloud5993 → u/Legionatus]

He was also selling seats to other people and not flying with them, which was against the terms of the agreement

[u/briellebabylol → u/Legionatus]

I still don’t care about the corporation here. They offered a thing and he bought it 🤷🏿‍♀️

[u/Legionatus → u/briellebabylol]

You don't need to care about the corporation. The legal system frowns on fraud, so he lost the pass. There isn't an issue here.

[u/Turbulent-Prior-2253 → u/Legionatus]

Exactly. Admitting this guy was a "victim" of FAFO doesn't mean you suddenly root for the corporation. Guy had a contract, guy violated the contract repeatedly, eventually the airline had enough and voided the contract.

Both sides in a dispute can suck, and sometimes a party you dislike is still in the right.

[u/NotYourGa1Friday → u/Turbulent-Prior-2253]

I think we have to take the timeline into consideration.

Before 9/11, you didn't need to show a boarding pass or a photo ID to walk through the metal detectors. Anyone could walk right up to the departure gate to say goodbye.

When it was time to board the plane, the gate agent only checked that you had a valid physical ticket for that flight. I think the only time pre-9/11 that I was asked for an ID at boarding was on international flights and even that was more of a perfunctory check to make sure I had my passport on me.

In the 80s and 90s there was a kind of booming secondary market for airline tickets. Airlines introduced “non-refundable” tickets that were worth $0 if you missed your flight. So if you had a change in plans, were sick, had an emergency, etc it was normal to transfer your ticket. The classifieds (a portion of the newspaper for ads made by people rather than companies—Craigslist but a physical newspaper) were full of ads for airline tickets.

While the back of most if not all airline tickets said, “non transferable” this did not make it illegal to transfer the ticket; and if you took the time to update the ticket at the counter with the name of the passenger then you were golden- by changing the name on the ticket, which only the airline could do, the airline facilitated and by default authorized the transfer.

So, from the time he bought this until 2001, buying tickets under names like “bag” or “guest” was not unheard of. Airlines were aware of the secondary market for airline tickets and checking an ID was simply not part of the process.

Obviously, post-9/11 rules changed. I’m curious to know if he kept booking with the placeholder names or if he did that pre-9/11 but the airline used it as an excuse to nullify the ticket.

Frankly, even if he did book under a bogus name, if the airline was updating tickets for him, allowing him to keep doing what he had been doing, he might not have realized that there was an issue.

Was he eccentric? Yes. But if he bought the pass, and the pass allowed for an extra seat then can we fault him for using the pass to its fullest extent?

The pass was meant as a joke, so the terms and conditions were probably weak—if they existed at all. This feels less like FAFO and more like the airline making their bed and refusing to sleep in it.

Apparently he was booking flights for other people and then not flying with them, which did break terms.

[u/Boeing367-80 → u/NotYourGa1Friday]

It wasn't normal as such, it was still against the rules, but it was possible. I onetime flew on a ticket in a woman's name - Brenda. I was challenged once, scowled and said "Brendan!". They laughed and didn't hassle me further.

At one time some airlines had FF tickets that were transferable - I know a guy who put himself thru undergrad selling those. Northwest onetime would send you a "Flywrite" FF tickets that you could basically write in anyone's name.

You have to remember that top performers rarely go into the airline biz. Airline execs are typically not the best and the brightest and in the 1980s and 1990s you had a lot of holdovers from the regulated era of the airline biz when regulators suppressed competition to ensure they all stayed in business - quasi utilities. So they did a lot of boneheaded things, many of which could be ruthlessly exploited by alert consumers.

Bob Crandall, who, for better or worse, basically invented the modern airline business in the 1980s at American Airlines, was so prominent because he was genuinely smart and innovative in a business that was largely devoid of such people. FF programs - he invented it. Yield management, he invented it, etc. A lot of later generation execs worked for Crandall.

[u/briellebabylol → u/Legionatus]

Yes no issue at all just making conversation

[u/BitterrootBackpack → u/Legionatus]

So why is the orange man still in office then?

[u/Andrew_7032 → u/Legionatus]

it's not fraud you dumfk

[u/11ce_ → u/Andrew_7032]

It is fraud. He was booking seats under fake names and selling them to people.

[u/AgenticGuillotine → u/Andrew_7032]

The judge disagreed.

[u/pabmendez → u/briellebabylol]

He abused it

[u/caelynnsveneers → u/briellebabylol]

but he ruined it for everyone who was using the pass fairly:/

[u/jfanderson05 → u/Legionatus]

Im pretty sure he would book flights to Europe just have a pass to the lounge and eat for free. Then not go to Europe lol.

[u/VERlFlEDaccount → u/Legionatus]

I have no clue but hard to believe there wasn’t some stipulation that you can’t just book endlessly and miss tons of flights

[u/Short_Ad_2584 → u/Legionatus]

Airlines do the same, at the cost of the consumer.