Shawn02139

You can pick up one for a mere $3 million, or, enjoy substantial savings on two, for only $5m (not clear whether you would have to travel together).

Valid for first-class travel, and you earn frequent flier miles. Only downside I can see is that you can't pay for it with your Citi AAdvantage...

http://www.aairpass.com/christmasbook/index.htm

(moderator feel free to close this thread if i missed someone else announcing this)

FWAAA

My favorite part of the text:

Limited? Yeah, right. AA would be out of its corporate mind to turn down anyone willing to pay $3 million for one of these.

Spiff

Paging Spiff's Secret Santa...

mwhitted

Wow. Talk about inflation. 1981 original: $250,000. Don't forget the included Admiral's Club membership.

Hey! For $3,000,000 you CAN get lifetime EXP. More or less.

Some interesting lines from the Web page:

"An exclusive for Neiman Marcus customers"?

"How many lifetime AAirpass memberships are you considering purchasing?"

(I was thinking of 1 for each person on my Christmas list. )

"Quantities are limited for this special offer." Right! (Already mentioned.)

"Personal information acquired from this form will be used by one of our dedicated AAirpass sales staff to contact you within 2 business days."

2 business days!? Does anyone think that AA would wait more than about 2 minutes to call anyone that they thought was seriously interested in this?

"Lifetime AAirpass memberships are subject to certain terms, conditions and restrictions that are set forth in a written contract to be entered into between the member and American Airlines. ... Flight schedules, destinations and other customer products and services are subject to change without notice."

Read "We'll take your $3,000,000 and let you fly just about any place we fly (on AA metal) until we decide that that wasn't such a good idea on our part and tell you (or not ("without notice") that you can't do that anymore. Sorry."

FlyAO2

No, the real downside is if AA goes out of business one day, you would be one ticked off person if you bought it..

djcrooks

For $3 million you could buy approximately 300 first class tickets anywhere on the planet with any combination of airlines (assuming +\- $10,000 per ticket), and you would earn 3,000,000 miles just from your credit card. Why in the world would somebody want to pay $3 million up front to ANY airline, not to mention one that publicly states it's in a less than pretty financial position, when you are limited to flights on their metal only?

Or I am missing something?

whmere

I could do well over 300 segments in the next 30-40 years. Plus of course I could use partner airline flights (by spending the miles I've accumulated on the 'free' flights.

mwhitted posted that the original lifetime pass was $250k. In today's money, that's a great bargain. So in 20 years, $3M could look like a wise decision.

Sigh.

FWAAA

Although inflation since 1981 has not increased 12-fold (as has the price of this pass), this pass gets you a lot more than it did in 1981. At the time it was sold in 1981, it didn't get you F to NRT or LHR or GRU or EZE or any other 3 class F destination. AA flies a lot more places than it used to.

grouse

You can use the Lifetime AAirpass and still get full mileage. If you use it to fly 150 000 000 miles you will have lowered the effective per mile cost to the magic 2 cents/mile threshold. Any flying you do after that will be pure gravy, PLUS you will be the first AA 150MMer!

Gardyloo

I will wager that at this very moment there are Hollywood and sports agents pitching this to their clients. Wonder if it's good on Turkish codeshares?

mwhitted

It's a Neiman Marcus Christmas Book thing. H-Y-P-E. Like His-n-Hers Lear Jets. Do you think anybody buys these things? Now the original AAirpass was supposed to be a plan to lock in current air fares at a time when air fares consistently went up. Or should I say at the end of a time when air fares consistently went up. They started to fairly consistently go down just about the time AAirpass was introduced. It was a flop.

I would probably do a fractional ownership deal before I'd do this.

Santa74

If you usually spend US$ 300,000 or more a year on AA and expect to do the same for another 50 years, the net present value of your flying would be almost exactly 3,000,000 if you assume a ten percent rate of discount.
Doesn't that sound reasonable to you?

justageek

But don't forget the $1 million you save if you buy two for $5 million!

FWAAA

Only valid on AA metal (plus AE and AX); no codeshares at all.

toomanybooks

A young person who could get a financial backer would be able to make a business out of this.

Buy the pass, locate in a hub, start a courier business. Fly somewhere a long way off every couple days.

How much do courier companies charge for their services?

And the FFer could accumulate miles ASAP and transfer them to a co-worker to increase the capacity of the courier business. Those miles would add up fast, especially once the FFer becomes PLAT or above.

Of course, it might be a hellish life for a while.

Just went to www.aairpass.com and saw that this pass seems (slightly unclear, since it talks about some other kinds of AAirpasses) to cover the holder AND a companion, which improves the economics of the deal A LOT. In addition to couriering, you could have a business escorting people various places; I assume there must be folks who do this for a living.