That is a perfectly resonable position to take - if American Airlines was also renegging on things like stock agreements, they'd have a internally consistent point, abeit one few people would agree with. This is just naked fraud though.

Hit the nail on the head. A deal is a deal, regardless of what kind of utilization there was.

Except if you break the terms of the contract (fraudulent bookings), which is alluded to in the post.

Yet the terms never said that what he was doing was considered fraudulent, and they'd known for years he was doing it. It's not like the people who were letting other people use their passes, which is clearly fraudulent. This is ambiguous at best. He was doing something regular first class passengers do all the time, perfectly legitimately: booking extra seats for bags/space/etc, or changing plans at the last minute. Nobody told him this wasn't allowed.

This is a typical HN comment. People here always seem to think that laws in contracts are like code, with strict rules and consequences.

It was ruled that his use was fraudulent, so it was, that's the end of it.

You cannot use a contract like a strict rule, bend it in the "ambiguous zone" and think nothing will happen. Contracts are broken all the time.

He may have respected the letter of the contract, but not the spirit, and that is enough to end the contract without compensation.

Similar cases happen very frequently. I remember a case of somebody using his unlimited internet access to run a server, and getting his contract canceled because his use was comparable to a business use, even if the server was not part of any business and the internet subscription never explicitly prevented such use.

He might have a case based on the fact that AA not only knew about his bookings, but actually assisted him in every one of them, without ever warning him.

If they tolerate and assist something like this for a long time, the clause forbidding it may become invalid, depending on the situation, similar to customary law situations.