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It sounds like a lot of money -- indeed, that's what AA marketing must have thought too. But first-class tickets aren't cheap, and if you can use as many as you want for the rest of your life, you'll quickly make your money back in tickets, and after that every ticket you get is absolutely free.

AA thought that their pass would be used by powerful companies to shuttle their top executives around; they never anticipated a bunch of run-of-the-mill wealthy people getting their hands on them and going stark-raving mad with power. Which they did. The prospect of "free flights any time, all the time, forever" was just too much for some people. One guy flew to London 16 times ... in a single month. Why not? If you don't mind the flight -- and it's first class, remember -- then it's like having a Star Trek teleporter. Decide you want to have lunch in London tomorrow, just hop on a plane and go. One guy has flown over 30 million miles on his lifetime pass -- enough to go around the globe more than a thousand times, or to fly New York to Tokyo 4,500 times.

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And remember, the buddy pass meant you could always bring somebody along. One guy liked to offer his buddy ticket to complete strangers, to let them taste the good life for once. Another gave away the frequent-flyer miles he accumulated to AIDS patients so they could see their families. It was all legal -- the deal didn't specify whom they could bring. Hey, want to impress a date? How about a spontaneous trip to Paris ... every weekend. Why not? It's free. In the beginning they didn't even prohibit pass holders from selling the buddy seat. You could sell it for a few thousand bucks and pay for your hotel and meals. It's no wonder these people practically lived on planes.