Imagine paying $350k for unlimited flights forever, only for the airline to revoke it

[WhiteTiger]

Seems weird from both ends. If I had a free pass to fly anywhere, I'd fly a lot more, too. You'd think something like that would come with some serious restrictions: Continental US only. 2 trips (to and back) international per month, that sort of thing. Seems handled poorly on both sides. But I agree. As soon as someone pays for something like that, they will most likely abuse it.

[Hack&Lube]

Chalk this down to poor forethought and design by the airlines to prevent excessive abuse. Even the biggest all-you-can-eat needs to have limits.

If you limited them to one round trip per month then it would be fine.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

But what if you signed a contract with rules and regulations when you went to an all you can eat buffet and it said nothing of limits or waste.

They could throw you out but they'd deserve to be sued for violating your agreement without you having broken any rules.

The federal Illinois judge who found in favour of the airline against Rothstein found that there was a termination clause present in the contract, and that AA could terminate the contract for fraudulent use.

The issue wasn't that he used the tickets too much, but that he was making false bookings. Also interesting to note is that the AAPass upgrade he bought to include a companion was actually a more restrictive ticket, because it REQUIRED that he fly with a companion.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by VO #23

The federal Illinois judge who found in favour of the airline against Rothstein found that there was a termination clause present in the contract, and that AA could terminate the contract for fraudulent use.

The issue wasn't that he used the tickets too much, but that he was making false bookings. Also interesting to note is that the AAPass upgrade he bought to include a companion was actually a more restrictive ticket, because it REQUIRED that he fly with a companion.

I was talking about an all you can eat buffet.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I was talking about an all you can eat buffet.

Yeah, I thought you were analogizing it to the airline. Didn't mean to call you out specifically or anything (someone had used the analogy previously it seems).

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Chalk this down to poor forethought and design by the airlines to prevent excessive abuse. Even the biggest all-you-can-eat needs to have limits.

If you limited them to one round trip per month then it would be fine.

For a $350k price tag, that wouldn't even be worth buying, unless your round trips were costing $10k a pop.

If they were following the rules, fine. If they turned their unlimited flights into some kind of business, where they were either booking and then reselling their tickets (for the buffet example, one person gets the all-you-can-eat, and feeds his friends) or makes money on the side by providing a shipping or courier service.

[Traditional_Ale]

That is a lot of mile-high club.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by Wormius

For a $350k price tag, that wouldn't even be worth buying, unless your round trips were costing $10k a pop.

If they were following the rules, fine. If they turned their unlimited flights into some kind of business, where they were either booking and then reselling their tickets (for the buffet example, one person gets the all-you-can-eat, and feeds his friends) or makes money on the side by providing a shipping or courier service.

The first-class round trips were worth well over $10K each (I think one-way from most Canadian cities to London can be close to $10K in first-class). The guys who got in at $350K made out like bandits.

[Azure]

Limiting it to one road trip per week would work too.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by VO #23

The issue wasn't that he used the tickets too much, but that he was making false bookings. Also interesting to note is that the AAPass upgrade he bought to include a companion was actually a more restrictive ticket, because it REQUIRED that he fly with a companion.

What I am guessing happened was he was selling his companion seat on the flight at a sizable discount relative to the book price, he gets to make a tonne of money flying around the world with his only risk being that the plane crashes or that he would in develop a DVT from sitting on his ass all day. This would explain his high number of cancellations as well as other people back out of their travel plans or decide to go a different route. On that note I am going to presume that American Airlines has a clause which states that the ticket can not be used for personal financial gain, allowing them to legally get out of the contract.

In fact I am 99% sure that is exactly what happened.

[GP_Matt]

I am just guessing, but I would assume they had to book so many days in advance. He probably tried to get around that by booking dozens of tickets continuously so he could always go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

What I am guessing happened was he was selling his companion seat on the flight at a sizable discount relative to the book price, he gets to make a tonne of money flying around the world with his only risk being that the plane crashes or that he would in develop a DVT from sitting on his ass all day. This would explain his high number of cancellations as well as other people back out of their travel plans or decide to go a different route. On that note I am going to presume that American Airlines has a clause which states that the ticket can not be used for personal financial gain, allowing them to legally get out of the contract.

In fact I am 99% sure that is exactly what happened.

That's not what the Illinois judge found. At page 4 of that decision, the judge outlined ways in which the use of the ticket could be deemed fraudulent. It had nothing to do with commercial gain, though that's obviously how AA set their case up. The other decision was tl;dr, so I can't comment on the reasoning the judge used there.

[Northendzone]

this part struck me as bizzare:

There was nothing in the AAirpass terms prohibiting that. But Cade considered the habit striking in light of something else she found. Rothstein made 3,009 reservations in less than four years, almost always booking two seats, but canceled 2,523 of them.

so foursyear is roughly 1,460 days - so he made about two reservations per day?

[valo403]

Originally Posted by VO #23

That's not what the Illinois judge found. At page 4 of that decision, the judge outlined ways in which the use of the ticket could be deemed fraudulent. It had nothing to do with commercial gain, though that's obviously how AA set their case up. The other decision was tl;dr, so I can't comment on the reasoning the judge used there.

It's funny what you can learn by actually reading the decision instead of making up your own stories and calling them 99% accurate isn't it?

[Regular_John]

Kinda reminds me of ISP's and "unlimited" bandwidth. "Well yes, we said unlimited, but we didn't think you'd use THAT much"

If you offer the public something "unlimited" or "free" you have to realize some one, somewhere is going to take it to the absolute extreme. Whether it's first class airline trips or croutons on Extreme Couponing, people are greedy and are going to take every last drop of blood they can get.

Honestly I don't really have sympathy for the airline here, sure the passengers were exploiting the system... but they paid for the right to do so. Were the passengers conducting themselves as entitled, disrespectful jerks? Yeah somewhat, but the airlines got themselves into this mess.

Having said all that... an unlimited lifetime pass would be just awesome as Cecil pointed out. Heck set up your flights/return times so you don't even have to book hotels for games/concerts/events whatever.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Kinda reminds me of ISP's and "unlimited" bandwidth. "Well yes, we said unlimited, but we didn't think you'd use THAT much"

If you offer the public something "unlimited" or "free" you have to realize some one, somewhere is going to take it to the absolute extreme. Whether it's first class airline trips or croutons on Extreme Couponing, people are greedy and are going to take every last drop of blood they can get.

Honestly I don't really have sympathy for the airline here, sure the passengers were exploiting the system... but they paid for the right to do so. Were the passengers conducting themselves as entitled, disrespectful jerks? Yeah somewhat, but the airlines got themselves into this mess.

Having said all that... an unlimited lifetime pass would be just awesome as Cecil pointed out. Heck set up your flights/return times so you don't even have to book hotels for games/concerts/events whatever.

I don't think the airline has any interest in garnering sympathy, it's the customer looking for that. That airline is simply revoking the pass due to fraudulent use.

For those who didn't read the article, the most blatant aspect of the fraud was this guy booking a second set for his bag so that he wouldn't have to sit next to someone.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by valo403

I don't think the airline has any interest in garnering sympathy, it's the customer looking for that. That airline is simply revoking the pass due to fraudulent use.

For those who didn't read the article, the most blatant aspect of the fraud was this guy booking a second set for his bag so that he wouldn't have to sit next to someone.

Ultimately this boils down to the same thing as pro sports lock outs/strikes, is there really anyone feeling sorry for either side of this millionaire vs billionaire feud?

[valo403]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Ultimately this boils down to the same thing as pro sports lock outs/strikes, is there really anyone feeling sorry for either side of this millionaire vs billionaire feud?

It's really nothing more than a pretty basic contract litigation. It's only newsworthy because these passes are such a bizarre/cool concept to pretty much everyone.

[Cowperson]

I can't "imagine" being daft enough to give $350,000 to upfront to an airline in exchange for a "lifetime" of service.

This is a business where Chapter 11 and outright bankruptcy are frequent occurences so its more likely you're talking about the "lifetime" of the airline instead of the person.

Yipes.

Anyway, sounds like a judge has already agreed with the airline that these guys were operating outside of the terms of the agreement.

Cowperson

[Rathji]

First thing I thought was that no way you could get $350k worth of flights from an airline.

Apparently I was wrong.

You need to wonder though, if the airline did this instead of borrowing money for expansion in the 1980's high interest periods, what the cost would have been to them (in todays dollars) for these flights. We are saying that these flights are 10k a piece, but not considering that they were paid for 25+ years ago.