Man who lost $250K lifetime first-class ticket after costing airline $21 million later regretted ever buying it

This man bought a lifetime first-class ticket called ‘AAirPass’ for $250,000 only to regret it later on.

However, he cost American Airlines almost $21 million, way more than what he paid for it.

When the airline caught wind of this, they sued the man and revoked his ticket.

Here’s his side of the story.

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Man lost $250K lifetime first-class ticket

In 1981, American Airlines tried selling a lifetime first-class ticket to alleviate their financial troubles.

However, they later realized their mistake as Steven Rothstein, a Chicago banker had cost them millions of dollars each year through the AAirpass.

Rothstein, who had been a frequent flier, was contacted by the airline and told he’d be the perfect candidate to get the lifetime ticket.

He eventually bought his ticket in 1987 for $250,000.

Two years later he spent $150,000 to add a companion pass to his lifetime first-class ticket.

In total, he had spent close to $400,000 on his AAirpass but got his money’s worth as he boarded around 10,000 flights.

Revoked AAirpass

However, all of this came to an end in 2008, when the airline revoked his lifetime first-class ticket.

American Airlines sued Rothstein accusing him of fraud as he had booked two seats on numerous flights only to cancel them.

He had also booked flights with the AAirpass for free, which he never planned to take.

Eventually, the case got settled out of the court with Rothstein denying committing fraud, and later saying, “I wish I’d never bought the thing.”

Tom Stuker is another American who bought a lifetime airline pass from United Airlines.

However, unlike Rothstein, he is treated as a celebrity on the airline.

United even celebrated Stuker completing 20 million miles.

One thing is for sure, no airline will ever offer such an amazing lifetime pass ever again.