How a NJ guy has flown first-class for free for over 30 years

Maybe you’ve heard the old phrase “it takes money to make money.” That applies here.

Tom Stuker is a New Jersey guy who has flown over 23 million miles. No, he’s not a pilot. Heck with those miles you might even think he was an astronaut.

Tom is just a guy who likes to travel who many years ago took advantage of a crazy promotion that United Airlines must surely regret offering. In 1990 the airline wanted to stir up people’s imaginations and thoughts of travel by making a deal where for $290,000 you got a lifetime pass of free first class travel anywhere they flew.

Anywhere.

Not only did United figure most would never be able afford such a lifetime pass (I think the idea here was get paying customers to simply start fantasizing about dream trips to whet their appetites), but those few who could would never actually use so many hundreds of flight to break even.

From a business perspective, even if they did take more flights than $290,000 worth, United knew it would be getting that money all upfront. For the airline it seemed like a win-win. And boy were they wrong.

You see Tom Stuker really likes to travel. He was able to afford the deal at 36 years old as the successful owner of a sales consulting business. In the many years since he’s become a social media influencer and a television personality. His favorite seat, yes he has one, is 1B. He is not arrogant about being the king of frequent flying. In fact a friend who once wrote a profile on Stuker told how he loves his United Airlines staff around the world and treats them like second family.

Isn’t he wasting time from his business flying so much to exotic locations? Fair question, to which the answer is no. He is prolific in the work he gets done during flights. The real win-win here was all Stuker, not United Airlines.

And it wasn’t a sure thing. He bought this lifetime pass in the middle of a recession. He had no idea if United would even still be around all these years with all the mergers and bankruptcies in the airline business. It was a calculated move that took years to pay off.

Not surprisingly United no longer offered a lifetime pass. But if they had their choice of who had one, I’d bet they’re glad it was a guy who loves flying like Tom Stuker from New Jersey.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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