A Minnesota rabbi was stripped of his frequent flier status after an airline claimed he complained too much.

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg filed a lawsuit against Northwest Airlines (now defunct and owned by Delta) that reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

Ginsberg claimed that Northwest Airlines did not act in good faith when they took away his top-level frequent flier status.

The justices sided with Northwest and, because of the 1978 deregulation of the airline industry, this suit was decided in the airline's favor.

Ginsberg and his wife traveled all over the United States giving lectures and attending conferences. They always used Northwest during their approximately 75 flights per year.

Even though Northwest's prices weren't always the cheapest, Ginsberg stayed exclusive to them and reached the highest status of Northwest's frequent flier program WorldPerks in 2005.

But in 2008, the airline cut him off. He thought it was because the airline was trying to save money by stripping benefits from frequent fliers like himself.

Northwest believed it had every reason to strip Ginsberg of his status due to his excessive complaining against the airline.

In seven months, Ginsberg logged 24 complaints. Northwest issued him almost $2,000 in travel vouchers, 78,500 bonus frequent flier miles, a voucher for his son and $491 in cash refunds.

Northwest argued that in its WorldPerks terms and conditions there is language that states the airline has right to cancel a frequent flier's account for abuse. And that's what they believed Ginsberg did.

The federal trial judge dismissed Ginsberg's claims that the "airline did not live up to the terms of the contract." 

Ultimately, Ginsberg's repeat complaints and demands led to Northwest's cancellation of his WorldPerks program.

For those interested in the full details, the case is Northwest, Inc. v. Ginsberg.