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/IamJusticus 22h ago

How in the world did they lose $21 million from him taking flights? Were they chartering Air Force One every time he wanted to fly?

Can someone explain how one man taking up one seat, not matter how many flights they took, added up to $21 million in losses?

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u/AddictedToOxygen 22h ago

He had a companion ticket also. That's 20k flight tickets theoretically. 21m/20k is ~1k average per first class ticket. Math seems very reasonable, especially given first class tickets are like 10k each nowadays.

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u/Early_Money2576 1h ago

He also booked multiple flights to the same destination, so he can arrive at the airport at any point and have a flight ready. When he doenst show up for those flights, airline was losing money on those too.