“I began to taste, directly, the fervor of foreign travel,” he tells me. Right: Dad, on the phone, and his colleague at the company’s booth at a wallets and clothing trade show in Los Angeles, circa 1973. Left: Dad with his mom in Hawaii on his first around-the-world trip. And I think – as does my whole family, including my dad – that at the very least, it doesn’t quite land. The obvious story is that my father was a decadent jet-setter who either screwed or got screwed by American depends on your take. It’s even a perennially popular conversation topic on Reddit.
The legal fight went on for years without going to trial. My father was one of several lifetime, unlimited AAirpass holders American claimed had breached their contracts.Ī few months later, my father sued American for breaking their deal, and more importantly, taking away something integral to who he was. After 20 years, it seems, they’d decided the pass wasn’t such a good idea. Then, on 13 December 2008, American took the AAirpass away.įor several years, the revenues department at American had been monitoring my father and other AAirpass holders to see how much their golden tickets were costing the airline in lost revenue.
All photographs courtesy Caroline Rothstein
“They signed a contract,” he said, “and a contract’s a contract.One of the many designs that American used for AAirpass. “It’s hard to fight them.”īut that’s just what he’s doing to get his beloved AAirpass back. “Our country is almost captive to big companies who have incredible power to do whatever they want to do,” said Rothstein, who moved to New York in 2009. Rothstein filed a lawsuit and a federal judge in Illinois ruled against him for booking under phony names. “I feel betrayed,” Rothstein said, adding that he helped sell AAirpasses to firms and spoke at the carrier’s events. He went home in shock and didn’t get out of bed for days. 13, 2008, he checked in at Chicago O’Hare International Airport with a friend, a policeman hoping to return to his native Bosnia.Īn American Airlines employee gave him a letter saying his pass had been terminated due to fraudulent activity. It was on another goodwill trip that Rothstein was ultimately dethroned, and he had no idea it was coming. “I felt those random acts of kindness were exactly the sorts of things that we’re meant to do as people,” he said. If a stranded traveler was crying - such as one woman desperately trying to return to Bronxville, NY, because her children didn’t have a baby sitter - he’d offer her his companion seat. He gave away all of his 14 million air miles. Still, the charmed traveler paid his fortune forward. “But I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, I went to Canada today.’ That would sound obnoxious.” He’d be home in time for dinner with his wife and friends. “A very fun Saturday would be to wake up early and fly to Detroit, rent a car and go to Ontario, have lunch and spend $50 or $100 buying Canadian things,” Rothstein said. Some days he flew to Providence, RI, home of his alma mater, Brown University, just for a baloney-and-Swiss-cheese melt from a place called Geoff’s. He took his son to dozens of nationwide sporting events including the Yankees-Mets Subway Series. He booked flights under fake names such as “Bag Rothstein” if he didn’t know who his companion would be - a practice that the airline later used to accuse him of fraud.īecause of the AAirpass, his daughter went to boarding school in Switzerland. Once a business meeting in Miami was postponed for a day, so he took a junket to Caracas. He traveled 18 times in July 2004 alone, jetting to Nova Scotia, Maine, London, Los Angeles and Denver. “I could go someplace and I wouldn’t even have to think about it,” he said.
#Airpass cost plus#
Rothstein, then living in Chicago, bought his AAirpass for $250,000, plus a companion ticket for $150,000 more. “I could just show up and get a seat.”īut in 2008, the airline accused him of fraud and snatched his bottomless boarding pass.Īmerican is reviewing its AAirpass program to find ways to terminate some of the 66 high-flying contracts that are costing the company millions of dollars a year. “ became a hero at the airline,” Rothstein, 61, a Manhattan investment banker, told The Post. He hopped planes to other cities just for a baseball game or a sandwich.Įverybody, even American’s CEO, knew his name. He used his power to fly hopeless strangers home, a friend to the Louvre, and a priest to Rome to meet the pope. He clocked more than 10 million miles and 10,000 flights. Steve Rothstein bought a golden ticket from American Airlines in 1987 - granting him a lifetime of unlimited travel. Steve Rothstein, who paid a mere $250,000 for his ticket in 1987, has made hundreds of overseas trips.
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