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This guy was clearly abusing the program. "...of the 3,009 flight segments Dad booked for himself from May 2005 to December 2008, he either canceled or was con

This guy was clearly abusing the program. "...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.

macintux 7y ago
Did you catch the fact that it wasn’t his idea to start doing that and that they never told him not to do so?
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  This guy was a stockbroker, not some random barista. He knew what he wanted and how to ask for it. Trying to pretend that travel agents did this all on his behalf and he's just a poor victim is naive.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    If I ask airline personnel to book me an empty seat on my free ticket and they say ‘sure sir, no problem!’ what exactly am I supposed to think went wrong?
    - paulcole 7y ago
      If I have a $500,000 golden ticket that I’ve built my entire identity and life around, I’m not going to trust some random ticket agent who’s just trying to get me off the phone.
      - naikrovek 7y ago
        He didn't deal with random ticket agents. Lifetime pass holders call a dedicated number just for them. Those answering knew who he was and he knew them by name.
        tomnipotent 7y ago
        If you have the American Express Black Card, sure. These customers were handled by the standard Executive Platinum team.
        atdrummond 7y ago
        Are you sure? I've been AirPass before and we book through different agents. Same when ConciergeKey wasn't a published benefit.
        9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
        Per the article, he very much knew all the personnel by name, to the point of sending them gifts and calling his "friends" to talk about anything and everything when feeling depressed.
      - listenallyall 7y ago
        He didn't place his trust in ticket agents (though his were far from random). He had a handwritten letter from CEO Robert Crandall: "I am delighted that you’ve enjoyed your AAirpass investment — you can count on us to keep the Company solid, and to honor the deal, far into the future."
        paulcole 7y ago
        The CEO wrote him a letter saying, “Sure, go ahead and book an empty seat for your suitcase under the name Bag Rothstein”? Because if not, it sure sounds like he put his trust in ticket agents.
        Aeolun 7y ago
listenallyall 7y ago
Bad faith? How many of those cancelled tickets were just re-booked for an earlier/later flight, or a day later? The reason airlines charge such harsh penalties for flight changes is because, if it were free or cheap to do so, everybody would constantly be adjusting their travel arrangements. Almost every airline trip I book, by the time it actually comes, I wish I could take a slightly different flight time or day. >> 17 flights a week So what? Why is that relevant when the pass is unlimited?
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  >> The reason airlines charge such harsh penalties... Scheduling and logistics is a perfectly good reason for having these expectations. Airlines have horrible margins (< 10%) in even good years, and fuel and staff isn't free. Planning is kind of a big deal in an industry like this, and you can't do that if everything is last minute. >> Why is that relevant when the pass is unlimited? He cancelled 84% of flights. Eighty. Four. Percent. This is such an absurd number that I cannot see how else you can look at this other than abuse. Maybe 10%? Sure.20%? Pushing it, but I could see that in special circumstances. Once you're cancelling 5-6x more flights than you're actually going on, there's a problem.
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    Changing/cancelling a 2-day-old reservation 6 months out -- not "last minute" -- has a negligible cost. However, AA will still charge a non-elite customer $200. If you could prove that the majority of Mr. Rothstein's cancellations were made within a week, even a month, of the actual flight, perhaps I'd agree with you, but that data is not available to us, and his daughter inferred that many tickets were cancelled within a day or two. You are using AA's chosen nomenclature against Mr. Rothstein. Was he truly "cancelling" or just changing the date/time/stopover most of these times (which AA would call a cancel/re-issue)? What about changing his seat at the gate -- the agent rips up the boarding pass and issues a new one. Is that considered a cancellation? If I was in court trying to amplify percentages to disparage someone, I'd probably say it was.
    - deleted 7y ago
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Wait, was there a bad faith guideline in the deal they offered. I mean I understand a little almost broke company like American can't afford this stuff, so hard decisions had to be made and deals they entered in with customers were broken just to stay afloat. It wasn't like they have $44.724B in annual revenues or anything that you might say - those guys have the wherewithal to honor the stupid agreements they make with customers.
Phillipharryt 7y ago
A few things to consider. If he had turned up to all of those flights there is the exact same financial situation for the airline as if he cancels at the very last moment, so him cancelling or not showing up is not an issue. The airline didn't complain that he booked too many flights. What would be an issue is if he double-booked flights, so there would be one he couldn't turn up to at all, this would be screwing the airline and bad faith. If he had done this he would have to know he would be inconveniencing the airline. The court case didn't bring this up and I would presume if they're willing to pull out specifics like the aforementioned cancellations, then they would jump at showing he double-booked flights. This leads me to believe he never did this, so he always intended to take the flights or at least wanted the opportunity available for him to take them, which really you should be able to with an unlimited ticket like that.

macintux 7y ago

Did you catch the fact that it wasn’t his idea to start doing that and that they never told him not to do so?

tomnipotent 7y ago
This guy was a stockbroker, not some random barista. He knew what he wanted and how to ask for it. Trying to pretend that travel agents did this all on his behalf and he's just a poor victim is naive.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  If I ask airline personnel to book me an empty seat on my free ticket and they say ‘sure sir, no problem!’ what exactly am I supposed to think went wrong?
  - paulcole 7y ago
    If I have a $500,000 golden ticket that I’ve built my entire identity and life around, I’m not going to trust some random ticket agent who’s just trying to get me off the phone.
    - naikrovek 7y ago
      He didn't deal with random ticket agents. Lifetime pass holders call a dedicated number just for them. Those answering knew who he was and he knew them by name.
      - tomnipotent 7y ago
        If you have the American Express Black Card, sure. These customers were handled by the standard Executive Platinum team.
        atdrummond 7y ago
        Are you sure? I've been AirPass before and we book through different agents. Same when ConciergeKey wasn't a published benefit.
        9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
        Per the article, he very much knew all the personnel by name, to the point of sending them gifts and calling his "friends" to talk about anything and everything when feeling depressed.
    - listenallyall 7y ago
      He didn't place his trust in ticket agents (though his were far from random). He had a handwritten letter from CEO Robert Crandall: "I am delighted that you’ve enjoyed your AAirpass investment — you can count on us to keep the Company solid, and to honor the deal, far into the future."
      - paulcole 7y ago
        The CEO wrote him a letter saying, “Sure, go ahead and book an empty seat for your suitcase under the name Bag Rothstein”? Because if not, it sure sounds like he put his trust in ticket agents.
        Aeolun 7y ago

listenallyall 7y ago

Bad faith? How many of those cancelled tickets were just re-booked for an earlier/later flight, or a day later? The reason airlines charge such harsh penalties for flight changes is because, if it were free or cheap to do so, everybody would constantly be adjusting their travel arrangements. Almost every airline trip I book, by the time it actually comes, I wish I could take a slightly different flight time or day. >> 17 flights a week So what? Why is that relevant when the pass is unlimited?

tomnipotent 7y ago
>> The reason airlines charge such harsh penalties... Scheduling and logistics is a perfectly good reason for having these expectations. Airlines have horrible margins (< 10%) in even good years, and fuel and staff isn't free. Planning is kind of a big deal in an industry like this, and you can't do that if everything is last minute. >> Why is that relevant when the pass is unlimited? He cancelled 84% of flights. Eighty. Four. Percent. This is such an absurd number that I cannot see how else you can look at this other than abuse. Maybe 10%? Sure.20%? Pushing it, but I could see that in special circumstances. Once you're cancelling 5-6x more flights than you're actually going on, there's a problem.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  Changing/cancelling a 2-day-old reservation 6 months out -- not "last minute" -- has a negligible cost. However, AA will still charge a non-elite customer $200. If you could prove that the majority of Mr. Rothstein's cancellations were made within a week, even a month, of the actual flight, perhaps I'd agree with you, but that data is not available to us, and his daughter inferred that many tickets were cancelled within a day or two. You are using AA's chosen nomenclature against Mr. Rothstein. Was he truly "cancelling" or just changing the date/time/stopover most of these times (which AA would call a cancel/re-issue)? What about changing his seat at the gate -- the agent rips up the boarding pass and issues a new one. Is that considered a cancellation? If I was in court trying to amplify percentages to disparage someone, I'd probably say it was.
  - deleted 7y ago

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

Wait, was there a bad faith guideline in the deal they offered. I mean I understand a little almost broke company like American can't afford this stuff, so hard decisions had to be made and deals they entered in with customers were broken just to stay afloat. It wasn't like they have $44.724B in annual revenues or anything that you might say - those guys have the wherewithal to honor the stupid agreements they make with customers.

Phillipharryt 7y ago

A few things to consider. If he had turned up to all of those flights there is the exact same financial situation for the airline as if he cancels at the very last moment, so him cancelling or not showing up is not an issue. The airline didn't complain that he booked too many flights. What would be an issue is if he double-booked flights, so there would be one he couldn't turn up to at all, this would be screwing the airline and bad faith. If he had done this he would have to know he would be inconveniencing the airline. The court case didn't bring this up and I would presume if they're willing to pull out specifics like the aforementioned cancellations, then they would jump at showing he double-booked flights. This leads me to believe he never did this, so he always intended to take the flights or at least wanted the opportunity available for him to take them, which really you should be able to with an unlimited ticket like that.