Man with $250,000 lifetime first-class ticket who cost American Airlines $21,000,000 had it revoked mid-flight

Frequent flyer Steven Rothstein spent $250,000 to buy an American Airlines lifetime first-class ticket – but the sought-after ticket eventually got him in trouble.

Rothstein purchased the ticket in 1987 and then used it to board more than 10,000 flights, costing the company $21 million.

American Airlines eventually revoked his pass.

And the worst part is: they did it mid-flight.

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Why the airline revoked Rothstein’s pass

American Airlines launched the AAirpass – a lifetime first-class ticket – in the early 1980s.

It wasn’t cheap to buy, but it made sense for well-off frequent travelers who could afford to buy one.

It certainly made sense, at least initially, for one Steven Rothstein.

Rothstein bought the ticket – one of only 66 people to do so – and racked up 30 million miles with his lifetime pass, all of which were covered.

It took the company a while to realize this, but they eventually did the math and concluded that this one passenger alone was costing them a fortune.

So they did two things, both of which got Rothstein into an ocean of trouble.

First, they revoked his lifetime pass, which was bad enough, but the worst part was that they did it mid-flight.

He had booked a layover flight, and right after completing his first flight, on his way to his connecting flight, he learned that American Airlines had canceled his pass while he was in the air.

American Airlines went further

The second thing they did was even worse because American Airlines decided to sue him.

In short, the airline accused him of booking seats for non-existent passengers and for flights he was never planning to board.

Rothstein and American Airlines eventually settled the case outside of court, which means we’ll never know what actually happened in the end.

What we do know is that, years later, Rothstein said that, even though he firmly denied any wrongdoing, he admitted that he still regretted buying it.