Mark Cuban purchased American Airlines lifetime pass for $125,000 after calling up with drunken request
Many of the richest people in the world tend to fly quite a lot, yet billionaire Mark Cuban made the wild decision to purchase a lifetime pass with American Airlines when he was drunk, and it only cost him $125,000.
While he might be the current owner of the Dallas Mavericks and have a net worth of over $8,000,000,000, Mark Cuban's road to wealth still had to start somewhere.
His 'big break' of sorts came when he was 32 years old, as he sold his tech software startup company MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6,000,000 – a figure that's worth around $15 million today when taking inflation into account.
It was after this massive influx of money that Cuban understandably had a celebration, yet the alcohol consumed during that night led to a wild decision he might not have expected.
Advert
As reported by CNBC Made It, Cuban revealed to Shannon Sharpe on the Club Shay Shay podcast that his drunkenness during that night caused him to purchase a lifetime pass at American Airlines — something he didn't even know existed until he called them up.
"My buddies and I went out and just got destroyed. They're like, 'What do you think you're going to do with all this money?' And I'm like, 'I don't care about cars or houses, but boy, you know, I fly a lot for work'," Cuban recalled.
"I called [American Airlines] up and just slurred my words, 'Do you guys sell lifetime passes?' I got all that information hungover as hell, and I signed up. Initially it was $125,000 and then I upgraded it.
"I forget how much I paid, but it gave me almost unlimited miles for me and somebody else for the rest of my life."
The pass that Cuban shelled out a staggering amount of money for appears to be what's called the 'AAirpass', which American Airlines introduced around 40 years ago in the early 1980s.
It doesn't have a set price, as it's calculated on how old the person buying it is, but the $125,000 that Cuban forked up would potentially cost as much as $308,959 if he got it today at the same age, although it's unclear whether the airline itself has increased beyond inflation.
One thing to take into account is that the unlimited plan was also for first class seats, so you wouldn't need to be sat all the way back in economy to make use of your unlimited miles.
It's worth obviously depends on how much you fly, and for someone like Mark Cuban it has probably paid itself back and then some already, so if you happen to have a spare $300,000 lying down the back of your couch it might be worth investing in.