> of the 3,009 flight segments Dad booked for himself from May 2005 to December 2008, he either canceled or was considered a “no-show” for 84 percent of those reservations.
So for a period of three and a half years, he booked about 2.3 flights a day, every day, and then only flew on about 1 in 6 of them. And he did a similar thing with his companion ticket.
There is a cost to this — 1st class seats the airline couldn’t sell or give to more valuable customers. The greater cost to the airline it seems was not flying this guy around, but his cancellations - which cost him nothing. And I think the judge, and many reasonable people would say that while the rules are unclear, he was clearly acting in bad faith.
If they wanted to stop the so-called fraudulent usage of the pass, they could have just asked. He cancelled so many flights because he thought that was allowed. If they told the guy he would lose his lifetime pass if he kept cancelling or no-showing, he would have stopped.
AA didn't give him a single warning. He always booked through an human agent, so they had plenty of opportunities. Instead they let him through airport security, and took his lifetime pass at the gate leaving him without his luggage.
This was clearly the act of a company that had a huge liability based on a one-sided contract that was easy for them to break out of. The only question is whether it was worth the PR hit, but it doesn't seem like the blowback has been that bad so far.
Listing the number based on flight segments makes it sound much worse than it really is. It seems like he flew internationally a lot -- so every round-trip cancellation could easily be 6 segments. I've often had to reschedule a trip twice. On those occasions, I'm only flying 0.33 of the segments I booked. His cancellations are only twice that. And with the golden ticket and no consequences, I could easily see a person with a busy schedule often booking two trips to have the seats reserved and then only taking the one they need. While he was abusing the system since there was no penalty, there are some of legitimate reasons too.
You are quoting/repeating the very specific parameters, and words, specifically chosen by American's army of data analysts to best support its legal case and put Mr. Rothstein in the worst possible light. I seriously doubt American offered the raw reservation data to Mr. Rothstein so he could counter. How long was the average reservation active before it was cancelled? How many days before the flight were the reservations cancelled? What percentage were cancellations vs no-shows? What percent of the flights had open seats at all, or in first-class (prior to comped upgrades)? Why go back to exactly May 2005 -- was his cancellation rate declining by 2008?
>> There is a cost to this
A lower cost than if he actually flew all 3009 flight segments -- which he was fully entitled to do.
As a frequent flyer, 2005-2008 was also a period of time when there were empty seats on planes and the airline industry was still recovering from 9/11. You could fly and half the plane might be empty. Cancellations fees weren't nearly as bad either.
Let's not jump to conclusions that he was acting in bad faith.
Why not tell him to stop? Why wait until years later? The problem is that their actions make it clear that they didn't have issues with his conduct. Rather, they decided to cut costs and as a result decided to retroactively reexamine behavior that they had clearly condoned, at least implicitly, years later.
He wasn't acting in bad faith - when they asked him to make changes to his behavior with the pass, he did. Every indication is that if the airline had politely asked him to stop booking flights and canceling them without a good reason, he would have. They were, on the other hand, clearly not acting in good faith. That's the issue.
On the one hand, AA could have handled this much better.
The author repeats almost every paragraph that even though the bookings were "fraudulent", AA never had an issue with them until they wanted to cancel the pass.
On the other hand, the whole article reeks of privilege, both by the rich-kid author and the guy. I understand that it is unfair to reneg.
But the pass, and the whole system these people live in, is based on unsustainable and negative externalities on people who certainly can not fly to Sweden or Paris just to pick up flowers!
Indeed, the "identity" of using an airplane like a bus is not a good one. Airplane travel is one contributor to climate change, something that will (of course) hit poor countries really hard.
Again, I understand the feeling when something like that is taken away. But beyond a miniscule, yet direct, contribution to climate change, someone who just flies across the ocean because he (or she) can to do something that could have been done at home as well, and call it an "identity" - ignoring that it has a real and terrible effect (even if the contribution is small) on the weakest among us - I dunno.
In that light, I just can't help to feel disgusted by this guy. Now, I am sure I am not the one who should throw the first stone etc... but she did write that article for me to read. So there it is.
To me, this story is a great illustration of how we humans will always try to become fat cats by clinging to and expanding upon any privilege we may have or comfortable situation we may find ourselves in. Be it something small, like free snacks in the breakroom at work, or something big, like free unlimited air travel, or something vast, like cheap abundant fossil energy, if there is any way whatsoever to externalize the costs of our privileges and benefits, then, naturally, that's what we do. And should this privilege that we have now come to consider our right ever be taken away, we are of course duly offended.
So I find this guy's reaction pretty understandable. I would love to think that I wouldn't so unreasonably take advantage of a playing field so absurdly tilted in my favor, and that I wouldn't be outraged when such a tilt was corrected. But such situations twist your perception of the world and it's hard to even know you're doing it.
Yes, I can't believe it but I'm actually sympathizing with the airline.
He booked fake reservations under fake names in case someone might want to travel with him. The fact no one at the airline asked him to stop committing fraud until 2004 does not lessen the fact he was, in fact, defrauding the airline out of thousands of dollars.
If he had just used the tickets as intended he'd probably still have his pass.
The “I won’t be able to pick up flowers in Paris on my 70th birthday!” complaint was my favorite gem here. I was 100% unsympathetic to this family by the end of this read.
> On the other hand, the whole article reeks of privilege, both by the rich-kid author and the guy. I
So what? Is that the guy had more privilege than you what's wrong? What about everyone that has less privilege than you?
> But the pass, and the whole system these people live in, is based on unsustainable and negative externalities on people who certainly can not fly to Sweden or Paris just to pick up flowers!
That's AA mistake and they are the ones paying for it.
> But beyond a miniscule, yet direct, contribution to climate change, someone who just flies across the ocean
Completely agree, but at the end it's AA that's doing theses damages and aren't compensating for them.
> On the other hand, the whole article reeks of privilege
So? What's wrong with privilege? You're talking about someone who signed a contract and paid for this privilege. That contract entitled him to use this privilege. It's understandable that he'd be upset when he lost it.
If you relied on a bus pass (unlimited privilege to use the bus) and the city took it away would you be upset?
If you rely on your car and the state took your driver's license away (unlimited privilege to drive) would you be upset?
What about your ISP cancelling your internet connection for using too much data?
You may scoff at these comparisons because they cost orders of magnitude less but it's exactly the same concept.
There's an interesting angle here of what a "superpower" does to someone's psychology. He internalized the ability to do these extraordinary things - including using the phone staff as a therapist line - as such a part of his identity, that he was devastated by having to live normally again. It's hard for myself to imagine myself getting to the point where I think I'm that special, but I'm not so naive to think that if I had a bunch of money and/or privilege for decades it couldn't happen to me too.
> “So in my incoherent state,” he writes, “I would book a seat for Dan or Laurie just imagining that they might come. I was making reservations and didn’t know whether I was even going. Here is why. I was up and [alone] in my home office and bored. So I would call the 800 number for the AAirpass desk and talk to the agent about the news or the weather or about Paris or little London. Then, after an hour of nothing they had to hang up. So I would make a reservation and ask them to fax it to me. Then the next day I would take the fax and cancel the reservation. I needed someone to talk to at midnight. The 800 number was open.”
Even his son says up front that he doesn't see what his dad was doing as such a sensational, extraordinary thing, that that description "doesn’t quite land," which is astonishing too.
This is the story of typically bad business decision of offering anything "unlimited".
I just cancelled my account with the vendor of "unlimited" cloud storage (who would throttle uploads to their promised unlimited cloud storage to curb the effects of bad business decision) to the benefit of clear, high performance vendor.
Whenver you see "unlimited" or "unlimted forever" - question this. If nothing else - ride the wave but don't expect it to be "unlimited" or "forever".
This. Don't try to win against whoever you do business with, look for arrangements where both sides can get their needs well catered for. If it looks like you are winning what the other is losing, there must be something hidden that you can't see, likely something big and important (like e.g. the insurance being exceptionally good at finding reasons for not paying). If it looks kind of balanced, there is at least a chance that the impression is not misleading.
"...of the 3,009 flight segments Dad booked for himself from May 2005 to December 2008, he either canceled or was considered a “no-show” for 84 percent of those reservations. During the same time period, he booked 2,648 flight segments for travel companions, and 2,269 were either canceled or a no-show."
Booked 3,009 flight segments in ~42 months. That's 17 flights a week, or 2.4 a day. He was basically using the companion pass to reserve empty seats.
Did American screw up by not having better usage guidelines? Yes. Did this guy take clear advantage of this program with bad faith? Yes.
It seems like AA had reasonable issues with how the pass was used, but it was pretty clear they were simply looking for justifications to cancel it. A warning and clarification of terms would have been sufficient.
But I'm sure cancelling these passes reduced expenses-- at least on paper.
> One trans Atlantic flight can burn as much as fuel as typical person would burn on a car Inna year.
Do you have a link on this? I've tried to look up numbers on this multiple times in the past, but reliable numbers have been hard to come by, especially for recent years. The ones I recall said that trans-continental flights in the US use something like 1/5 of a year's worth of car emissions, not a whole year's worth.
Heard about the AAirpass from Mark Cuban who calls it one of the best things he's ever bought. If I had 250k to spend on one, I'd definitely do it too. There's something magical about being able to point to a place on the globe and get there in hours and apparently there's still a few valid ones out there.
Yet another worthless article lamenting the fact that an immensely privileged person had a minor inconvenience to their lifestyle.
It's not exactly something that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", as according to the HN guidelines - obsessing over the idle rich is not an intellectual pursuit.
This was a captivating article of a time when a company severely mispriced a product. I wonder what are today’s products that have this sort of potential mispricings?
Anything with a “lifetime” option is worth evaluating. I’ve come out way ahead on plans that are pricey up-front but easily pay off longer-term if you plan to remain a user of that service or product.
> Dad’s luggage went to London. They wouldn’t help him get it back. He called someone in the baggage department at Heathrow, who assisted. Aamil never made it to Sarajevo. In fact, that was one of the last times they ever spoke. Ultimately, Aamil disappeared from our lives.
After the Lockerbie bombing, I thought that aviation rules where changed to prevent a flight taking off if the owner of checked in luggage isn't on board the plane, so this was a bit surprising. I wonder if AA broke a few rules here in their haste to terminate the pass?
Uhh... so flying at a very discounted rate was integral to who he was? His identity? That seems a bit much. I'm finding it hard to sympathise with this guy, although AA sold a "lifetime" ticket, so that was their mistake and they should honour it. If it had turned out to have made them money instead, they'd happily continue. They made a miscalculation, that's on them.
But rather a convoluted mess of 'user agreements' - which are designed to basically give all power to the corporate masters that create them. Some of them are even auto tripped by filters and algorithms.
If I took the money of a corporation and then reneged on providing what I promised at the time of billing, I'd get sued to death, and even imprisoned.
But a paypal account? Uber? Upwork? - Closed, earnings forfeit and anything else they want to do. Sometimes, no human recourse at all, just machines deciding.
The worst part is that the majority of the population are inclined to side with the powerful, just look at some of the comments. Some people can't see theft if it is done by the powerful, it becomes 'enforcement of rules', or 'use of tips to pay services', or 'creation of accounts to increase fees', or 'forfeiture of funds'.
I have a hard time feeling sympathetic to either party here. Clearly the man was violating the terms of the contract with speculative bookings and booking seats for his luggage under fake names. OTOH, the airline clearly intended for these to be like lifetime gym memberships where people buy them and then hardly use them (an unrealistic expectation for something that cost $250K in 1980's dollars) and was looking for any way possible to cancel their obligations once this didn't play out as hoped.
I'm really struggling to get my head around the emotional trauma here. He bought the unlimited ticket, got many multiples of value from it over 30 years, and then they renegged. Had they never offered the ticket, he would have paid much more overall (even though he would almost certainly have also flown less), and would only be exactly where he is now: a poor schlub who has to buy airline tickets to travel. Where is the loss?
In the many multiples of millions of dollars the ticket would have saved him over the next 30-40 years?
The fact that something the airline sold was a terrible idea doesn’t make it right to suddenly take it away.
And to be honest, if literally every action taken by him was actually proxied through AA employees, and nobody said anything. I can’t really see why they would have any ground to stand on in regards to cancelling the ticket.
He built a strong emotional relationship with the employees and then got cut off, abruptly, at the airport, with them not only unwilling to let him board his flight but unwilling to help him get his luggage back.
On top of that, they wouldn’t tell him why (at the time).
This was his life for many years. Emotionally it must have been similar to showing up at home one day and discovering your wife had locked you out and filed for divorce with absolutely no warning, and you had no idea what happened.
The pass supposed to last for lifetime, it doesn't matter if he got more value during the time he had it, they took something very very valuable from the man, its easy to see the emotional trauma it caused.
People often feel emotional trauma when they're reneged on or sued. It doesn't necessarily have to be done by a person for the victim to feel betrayed. I'm thinking of Uzi Nissan, the owner of Nissan Computers, who is still getting sued by Nissan Motors to turn over nissan.com to them. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he feels a certain emotional pain about all that.
I'm also finding it difficult to empathize with the trauma. Seems like he traveled to Agra, India, so he must have met people that are not only below the flight line, but that will not and cannot leave a 10km circle for the rest of their lifes.
Personally, I have bound with people below the flight line and ever since I cherish every flight I take, although it's in economy class and I have to pay for it.
I agree he got his money worth out of American Airlines many many times over, so he should just accept it and pony up for airfare like everybody else now. From the article it seems like he can afford it, previously working at Bears Sterns and being able to afford $250k for the initial unlimited pass.
Plus, there was a clause in the contract about fraudulent use, and it certainly seems he was using it fraudulently booking empty first class seats for his luggage and such.
Every regular customer should be thankful this was put to an end. Keep in mind such every regular customer will have to pay for such extravaganza that will have to be reflected in the ticket prices after all.
[+] [-] JackFr|6 years ago|reply
So for a period of three and a half years, he booked about 2.3 flights a day, every day, and then only flew on about 1 in 6 of them. And he did a similar thing with his companion ticket.
There is a cost to this — 1st class seats the airline couldn’t sell or give to more valuable customers. The greater cost to the airline it seems was not flying this guy around, but his cancellations - which cost him nothing. And I think the judge, and many reasonable people would say that while the rules are unclear, he was clearly acting in bad faith.
[+] [-] halter73|6 years ago|reply
If they wanted to stop the so-called fraudulent usage of the pass, they could have just asked. He cancelled so many flights because he thought that was allowed. If they told the guy he would lose his lifetime pass if he kept cancelling or no-showing, he would have stopped.
AA didn't give him a single warning. He always booked through an human agent, so they had plenty of opportunities. Instead they let him through airport security, and took his lifetime pass at the gate leaving him without his luggage.
This was clearly the act of a company that had a huge liability based on a one-sided contract that was easy for them to break out of. The only question is whether it was worth the PR hit, but it doesn't seem like the blowback has been that bad so far.
[+] [-] hatfieej|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] listenallyall|6 years ago|reply
>> There is a cost to this
A lower cost than if he actually flew all 3009 flight segments -- which he was fully entitled to do.
[+] [-] supercanuck|6 years ago|reply
Let's not jump to conclusions that he was acting in bad faith.
[+] [-] cher88|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awillen|6 years ago|reply
He wasn't acting in bad faith - when they asked him to make changes to his behavior with the pass, he did. Every indication is that if the airline had politely asked him to stop booking flights and canceling them without a good reason, he would have. They were, on the other hand, clearly not acting in good faith. That's the issue.
[+] [-] zwaps|6 years ago|reply
On the other hand, the whole article reeks of privilege, both by the rich-kid author and the guy. I understand that it is unfair to reneg. But the pass, and the whole system these people live in, is based on unsustainable and negative externalities on people who certainly can not fly to Sweden or Paris just to pick up flowers!
Indeed, the "identity" of using an airplane like a bus is not a good one. Airplane travel is one contributor to climate change, something that will (of course) hit poor countries really hard.
Again, I understand the feeling when something like that is taken away. But beyond a miniscule, yet direct, contribution to climate change, someone who just flies across the ocean because he (or she) can to do something that could have been done at home as well, and call it an "identity" - ignoring that it has a real and terrible effect (even if the contribution is small) on the weakest among us - I dunno.
In that light, I just can't help to feel disgusted by this guy. Now, I am sure I am not the one who should throw the first stone etc... but she did write that article for me to read. So there it is.
[+] [-] wastholm|6 years ago|reply
So I find this guy's reaction pretty understandable. I would love to think that I wouldn't so unreasonably take advantage of a playing field so absurdly tilted in my favor, and that I wouldn't be outraged when such a tilt was corrected. But such situations twist your perception of the world and it's hard to even know you're doing it.
[+] [-] ordinaryperson|6 years ago|reply
He booked fake reservations under fake names in case someone might want to travel with him. The fact no one at the airline asked him to stop committing fraud until 2004 does not lessen the fact he was, in fact, defrauding the airline out of thousands of dollars.
If he had just used the tickets as intended he'd probably still have his pass.
[+] [-] myvoiceismypass|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwild|6 years ago|reply
So what? Is that the guy had more privilege than you what's wrong? What about everyone that has less privilege than you?
> But the pass, and the whole system these people live in, is based on unsustainable and negative externalities on people who certainly can not fly to Sweden or Paris just to pick up flowers!
That's AA mistake and they are the ones paying for it.
> But beyond a miniscule, yet direct, contribution to climate change, someone who just flies across the ocean
Completely agree, but at the end it's AA that's doing theses damages and aren't compensating for them.
[+] [-] driverdan|6 years ago|reply
So? What's wrong with privilege? You're talking about someone who signed a contract and paid for this privilege. That contract entitled him to use this privilege. It's understandable that he'd be upset when he lost it.
If you relied on a bus pass (unlimited privilege to use the bus) and the city took it away would you be upset?
If you rely on your car and the state took your driver's license away (unlimited privilege to drive) would you be upset?
What about your ISP cancelling your internet connection for using too much data?
You may scoff at these comparisons because they cost orders of magnitude less but it's exactly the same concept.
[+] [-] Nursie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majormajor|6 years ago|reply
> “So in my incoherent state,” he writes, “I would book a seat for Dan or Laurie just imagining that they might come. I was making reservations and didn’t know whether I was even going. Here is why. I was up and [alone] in my home office and bored. So I would call the 800 number for the AAirpass desk and talk to the agent about the news or the weather or about Paris or little London. Then, after an hour of nothing they had to hang up. So I would make a reservation and ask them to fax it to me. Then the next day I would take the fax and cancel the reservation. I needed someone to talk to at midnight. The 800 number was open.”
Even his son says up front that he doesn't see what his dad was doing as such a sensational, extraordinary thing, that that description "doesn’t quite land," which is astonishing too.
[+] [-] gesman|6 years ago|reply
I just cancelled my account with the vendor of "unlimited" cloud storage (who would throttle uploads to their promised unlimited cloud storage to curb the effects of bad business decision) to the benefit of clear, high performance vendor.
Whenver you see "unlimited" or "unlimted forever" - question this. If nothing else - ride the wave but don't expect it to be "unlimited" or "forever".
[+] [-] usrusr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterkelly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomnipotent|6 years ago|reply
"...of the 3,009 flight segments Dad booked for himself from May 2005 to December 2008, he either canceled or was considered a “no-show” for 84 percent of those reservations. During the same time period, he booked 2,648 flight segments for travel companions, and 2,269 were either canceled or a no-show."
Booked 3,009 flight segments in ~42 months. That's 17 flights a week, or 2.4 a day. He was basically using the companion pass to reserve empty seats.
Did American screw up by not having better usage guidelines? Yes. Did this guy take clear advantage of this program with bad faith? Yes.
[+] [-] danielfoster|6 years ago|reply
But I'm sure cancelling these passes reduced expenses-- at least on paper.
[+] [-] Ayesh|6 years ago|reply
With so many pointless flights, I can't even wrap my head around his environment foot print.
[+] [-] asah|6 years ago|reply
that said, burning jet fuel is substantially worse for the environment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...
[+] [-] mehrdadn|6 years ago|reply
Do you have a link on this? I've tried to look up numbers on this multiple times in the past, but reliable numbers have been hard to come by, especially for recent years. The ones I recall said that trans-continental flights in the US use something like 1/5 of a year's worth of car emissions, not a whole year's worth.
[+] [-] Double_a_92|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manigandham|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmmhm|6 years ago|reply
It's not exactly something that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", as according to the HN guidelines - obsessing over the idle rich is not an intellectual pursuit.
[+] [-] benenglish|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] markvdb|6 years ago|reply
http://archive.is/jkb0x
[+] [-] j7ake|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkagerer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmkni|6 years ago|reply
> Dad’s luggage went to London. They wouldn’t help him get it back. He called someone in the baggage department at Heathrow, who assisted. Aamil never made it to Sarajevo. In fact, that was one of the last times they ever spoke. Ultimately, Aamil disappeared from our lives.
After the Lockerbie bombing, I thought that aviation rules where changed to prevent a flight taking off if the owner of checked in luggage isn't on board the plane, so this was a bit surprising. I wonder if AA broke a few rules here in their haste to terminate the pass?
[+] [-] dkersten|6 years ago|reply
Uhh... so flying at a very discounted rate was integral to who he was? His identity? That seems a bit much. I'm finding it hard to sympathise with this guy, although AA sold a "lifetime" ticket, so that was their mistake and they should honour it. If it had turned out to have made them money instead, they'd happily continue. They made a miscalculation, that's on them.
[+] [-] Latteland|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4ntonius8lock|6 years ago|reply
Not some big brother.
Not some soma magic happy pill.
But rather a convoluted mess of 'user agreements' - which are designed to basically give all power to the corporate masters that create them. Some of them are even auto tripped by filters and algorithms.
If I took the money of a corporation and then reneged on providing what I promised at the time of billing, I'd get sued to death, and even imprisoned.
But a paypal account? Uber? Upwork? - Closed, earnings forfeit and anything else they want to do. Sometimes, no human recourse at all, just machines deciding.
The worst part is that the majority of the population are inclined to side with the powerful, just look at some of the comments. Some people can't see theft if it is done by the powerful, it becomes 'enforcement of rules', or 'use of tips to pay services', or 'creation of accounts to increase fees', or 'forfeiture of funds'.
[+] [-] DebtDeflation|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
I think there were others?
[+] [-] rabidrat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aeolun|6 years ago|reply
In the many multiples of millions of dollars the ticket would have saved him over the next 30-40 years?
The fact that something the airline sold was a terrible idea doesn’t make it right to suddenly take it away.
And to be honest, if literally every action taken by him was actually proxied through AA employees, and nobody said anything. I can’t really see why they would have any ground to stand on in regards to cancelling the ticket.
[+] [-] macintux|6 years ago|reply
On top of that, they wouldn’t tell him why (at the time).
This was his life for many years. Emotionally it must have been similar to showing up at home one day and discovering your wife had locked you out and filed for divorce with absolutely no warning, and you had no idea what happened.
[+] [-] matz1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyclif|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anticristi|6 years ago|reply
Personally, I have bound with people below the flight line and ever since I cherish every flight I take, although it's in economy class and I have to pay for it.
[+] [-] Ididntdothis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hkmurakami|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nodesocket|6 years ago|reply
Plus, there was a clause in the contract about fraudulent use, and it certainly seems he was using it fraudulently booking empty first class seats for his luggage and such.
[+] [-] ganesh7|6 years ago|reply