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The Man With the Golden Airline Ticket

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Jul 22, 2019.

  1. Melody Bot Jul 22, 2019
    Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    Caroline Rothstein:


    On March 10, 2009, a case was filed in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where I grew up. Rothstein v. American Airlines, Inc. starred my father, Plaintiff Steven Rothstein, and the Defendant, then the world’s third-largest airline. With $23 billion in annual revenue, American Airlines had nothing to lose. For my father, it was a last-ditch effort to save his life.

    Here’s how it all took off. In the early 1980s, American rolled out AAirpass, a prepaid membership program that let very frequent flyers purchase discounted tickets by locking in a certain number of annual miles they presumed they might fly in advance. My 30-something-year-old father, having been a frequent flyer for his entire life, purchased one. Then, a few years later, American introduced something straight out an avid traveler’s fantasy: an unlimited ticket.
    ​

    Fascinating story.

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  2. lava890 Jul 22, 2019
    lava890

    Regular Supporter

    Honestly, I feel bad for him because of his mental health issues but I can see why they terminated his AAirpass. He was really abusing the system.
     
  3. Piercalicious Jul 22, 2019
    Piercalicious

    Regular

    Aside from the bookings he made and then didn't travel on while depressed, all of the instances where he charitably granted his companion seat to random travelers also seem like huge violations. As nice as they are, those are definitely clear instances of lost revenue for the company.

    Also on a personal level, I kind of have a hard time empathizing with the general tenor of the article. An already very wealthy man loses an insane, wealth-amplifying privilege? Okay.
     
    SuNDaYSTaR, RunInTheFront and lava890 like this.
  4. skaorsk8 Jul 23, 2019
    skaorsk8

    Newbie

    This is exactly what's wrong with companies - greed overtakes honor. You agreed to something but then later, you don't like the outcome? Unfortunately, that's life - for both people, and companies. You can politely ask to change the parameters, but just because you're a big corporation doesn't entitle you to treat paying customers however you want.
     
    Raku likes this.
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  6. KyleK Jul 23, 2019
    KyleK

    Let's get these people moving faster! Supporter

    Is it just me, or does the article never actually quantify how many trips/miles he took over the 20+ years with the pass? And I can't help but feel that was intentional so as to not accommodate calculating how many potentially millions of dollars of travel he derived from the original investment.

    And sure, AA were idiots for thinking they would profit from a product like this, and deserve blame for it, but as others have said, I guess I just can't feel as much sympathy for someone of (financial) privilege who successfully benefited from the program as long as he did, based so much of their personal identity from it, and pushed the boundaries of its use to that degree. Having said all that, he should have been warned, rather than simply had it taken away - and I do believe AA worked very hard to find fault for the sole intention of taking a loss leader off their books. Ultimately I felt very emotionally conflicted when reading it, because I'd so often side against a big company.