bostonflyer14

I'm a JetBlue Mosaic flyer and I'm curious what everyone thinks about JetBlue not offering Mosaics upgrades to EMS seats... They seem to rather give one-off travelers without seat assignments the EMS seats that are unpurchased just before boarding. This seems like a major flaw to me. Thoughts?

RandomBaritone

They do offer EMS to Mosaic members for basically nothing. The only catch is that you have to secure the seats before arriving at the airport.

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...s-with-points/

bostonflyer14

Using points doesn't make it a benefit its an option to use earned points that could be used for flights... The point is they give these seats away at the airport - shouldn't they be to their best customers not their worst?

rhubbell

Couple things...1) it SOOO "cheap" to upgrade with points, and 2) when I haven't done it in advance, I've asked nicely at the counter/gate, and received complimentary upgrade, and 3) I've never seen anyone get free upgrades as you describe...to the contrary, I've seen the FA's offer seats for the appropriate fee (exclusively)

RandomBaritone

The number of points required of Mosaic members is nominal. I agree that I t'd be an even nicer perk to Make them complimentary for Mosaics.

I've never observed GAs moving passengers from confirmed seats into EMS seats at the gate for free. Of course if a flight is full and there are passengers without seat assignments, or NRSA employees waiting for confirmation, it makes sense that they'd end up in the only available seats, even if they're in EMS.

jsk1973

JetBlue isn't run by idiots. They've obviously seen the pitfalls of free upgrades and want no part of it.

JetBlue allows Mosaics to upgrade into EMS seats for a pittance, but it's a transaction. If they made upgrades free, then upgrades would soon become an expectation, which has resulted in FT's other airline forums being chock full of self-entitled "elites" fuming because their upgrades didn't come through.

JetBlueFA

If I am not mistaken our Gate Agents are now allowed to upgrade Mosaics to EMS seats free of charge. Several times in the past month I've loaded the seat map on my iPad to see a Mosaic in a middle seat in the back of the plane. I'll refresh the seat map several minutes later to see that Mosaic now in an EMS seat. If you want to upgrade and are Mosaic ask the gate agent working your flight b

JetBlueFA

Just confirmed with an Airports Supervisor. Gate agents are encouraged to upgrade Mosaics to EMS upon request. They are even allowed to upgrade Mosaic even without request.

escapefromnyc004

I've never had someone offer an upgrade at JFK (and I've never requested one), but I am ALWAYS offered a free upgrade when I fly out of LIR in Costa Rica. I guess because its such a small airport and I'm a regular? Anyway, I never take them up on it because I'm not tall enough to notice the difference! I'm 5'6" and only bother getting an EMS seat when my normal window seat is taken.

I agree that the points that are required basically = free. When I book ahead of time it is normally only 400 points, but I think it is valued at ~$65. A $65 airline ticket is worth waaaaaaay more than 400 points.

sbm12

Initial resistance was both technical and financial. But when Mosaic rolled out initially a limited number of comp EMS seats was part of the play. I'm not surprised the comp option was discontinued. Selfishly I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised.

RWPrincess

May I ask which airport? I've never had this happen at JFK.

RWPrincess

I think it's a fine line. While I understand their desire to not be like other airlines, Mosaics are the bread and butter clients of B6 and should be treated as such. There are so few Mosaics that I don't think B6 is in danger of having excess elites fighting over upgrades just yet. I spent over $10K last year to earn my status. For what? No free upgrades, hardly ever recognized onboard even though they are supposed to do it, no invites to NY area Mosaic events that B6 executives brag about on Twitter, and a cheap plastic luggage tag that cracked taking my suitcase out of their overhead bin. They can't even replace that for me.

What do I get? Free booze, paid upgrades with my hard earned points, "early" boarding, and no change fees. I would love it if when I cancel a flight, the money comes back to my original form of payment rather than my travel bank. If I'm Mosaic, I'm going to fly again. They don't have to forcibly lock me in, especially if it's not my money. In terms of putting unassigned passengers into EMS seats for free, that annoys as well. I get it if it's a non-rev but passengers not paying annoys me. At the very least, those who did pay should be refunded so that we are all on the same playing field.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I love B6 but I don't love the way they do a lot of things. We are their most loyal customers and should be treated as such. That means taking care of us before other passengers, before celebrities, before media, before bloggers, etc. Some of the things I see on B6 social media and their executives' social media are almost comical sometimes. So concerned about getting shoutouts from particular one off passengers rather than following and taking note of their most loyal passengers who post about them on a consistent basis. There is something very wrong with that. When the Fly Babies video came out, one of their executives was going around Facebook posting it on the pages of well known customer service personalities, some of whom do not even fly B6. Is that really a good use of business time and funds? Or is a better use of their time finding out how Mosaics can continue to renew their status and keep spending money with the airline? There is a reason why the are so many books and white papers out there about loyalty and "Raving Fans" and such. Mosaics are JetBlue's best customers.

My 2 cents.

jsk1973

What more, exactly, do you want from JetBlue? They're already giving you a $90 EMS seat for the equivalent of ~$10 worth of TrueBlue points.

blink22

I've had this happen at both BOS and DCA

moulder3

I have to disagree. The BOS-DCA route seems to be 15-25% Mosaics nowadays and most flights I've been on went from about 5% Mosaic two years ago to 10-15% now. All these matches & promos are making it fairly easy for someone to qualify. I'd say we're fortunate that most of the benefits offered to Mosaics aren't space-limited restrictions so it doesn't impact the current Mosaic members (since our major benefits are cancellation waiver, free bags & free drinks).

Totally agree with you on this, but there is NO WAY Wall St. would allow this--the only reason they can allow free cancellation is because the $ is already counted as a sale to JetBlue. If they really "lost" money everyone someone canceled, it would look terrible on their balance sheet. I'm extremely grateful that we're able to cancel for free! Yes, it would be nice to get the $ back, but remember that only Southwest offers this perk and AA just announced they're effectively killing what was the few remaining perks of the AAdvantage program (making it just as bad as Delta & United). These days we really need to be grateful for JetBlue...and that we have them as an option!