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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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/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/SueForPeas 1d ago

You’ve read the contract?

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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.