Stepping away from the market carnage I got to thinking about the story of how AA (and I think UA too? Maybe others?) offered an "AAirpass" in the early 80's. As I recall the airlines did it as they believed it was cheaper to raise capital in this manner than through other options. In the long run, AA seems to have underestimated the true cost of the program but AAirpass customers did survive AA's bankruptcy and their AAirpasses remain valid. I want to say UA had a similar program as well but cannot recall the details.

From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAirpass

AAirpass was a membership-based discount program offered by American Airlines to frequent flyers launched in 1981. The program is best known for a previous offering of unlimited travel on American Airlines and unlimited access to Admirals Club locations. Pass holders were offered terms of five years or lifetime.



When AA launched the program in 1981 the cost was $250,000 (or about $711,000 in 2020) and allowed the holder of the pass unlimited lifetime travel on AA. Basically imagine an IATP card where you could only buy tickets on AA for yourself and never had to pay the bill. An option existed to add a companion for an additional $100,000 (or about $285,000 in 2020). While the companion could change, the companion always had to accompany the passholder.

As the tickets were revenue tickets, points were earned for travel and subject to the T&Cs of AAdvantage.

Anyways the question I have for the UA forum is considering where we are at, is there an amount you would consider kicking over to UA for unlimited, lifetime, revenue-based, front cabin travel?