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Gate Agent Arrested for Illegally Upgrading 500 Tickets

A former JetBlue employee is facing up to 20 years in prison and potentially $250,000 in fines, for her role in rigging the airline’s ticketing system in favor of friends. Tiffany Jenkins pleaded guilty on October 18, 2019, on three counts of wire fraud for converting some low-cost flights to expensive international flights.

A gate agent is facing hard time for her role in upgrading friends and family under the airline’s “involuntary exchange” rule. “A Chelsea woman pleaded guilty today in federal court in Boston in connection with using her position as an airline gate agent to convert low-cost flights to more expensive flights and destinations for friends, family, and acquaintances reads a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Although the press release does not name the airline involved, the Boston Globe independently confirmed that JetBlue was the airline in question and that 31-year-old Tiffany Jenkins plead guilty to three counts of wire fraud on October 18, 2019.

How Did So Many People Get Free Upgrades?

Between July 1, 2016, and September 27, 2017, Jenkins completed 505 ticket exchanges for over 100 people–which works out to over one upgrade per day–using the “involuntary exchange” rule or “INVOL” for short. Under the rule, gate agents are allowed to change flights for customers for free when facing extraordinary circumstances, such as the death of a family member or a missed flight.

Jenkins used the INVOL rule to swap flights for her associates who bought cheap JetBlue flights for short flights–between Long Beach Airport (LGB) and Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS)–then upgrade them for more expensive flights, often for international destinations. JetBlue estimates the cost of the upgrades to be around $785,000.

The press release did not specify if Jenkins had an agreement with prosecuting attorneys for the guilty plea. Under federal law, the former employee could face up to 20 years in prison, and fines of $250,000 or twice the gross loss or gain, whichever is greater. Jenkins will return to court on January 21, 2020, for sentencing.

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14 Comments
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Rbt001 November 22, 2019

For those who ask how is it possible? From reading the article "INVOL" is a "not to be used regularly" because is a "special and powerful code" that allows a ticket to be interlined without normal checks (i.e. "why is LAX-LAS now routing to LHR?") and as a "very special exception" without the normal audits and controls. Afterall, according to the article it took 505 tickets and almost 14 months before it was halted. I'm sure "INVOL" will be clamped down and the door has been closed or is more closely guarded--- or we would believe.

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AJNEDC October 28, 2019

This story doesn't make sense to me. As a few posters have already stated, how can you do an invol from an original LAX-LAS flight to LAS to London or Lax/LHR etc? Did travellers book Lax/Las originally knowing that they wanted to travel to London as an example, checked in for their departing flight on day of travel and agent routed them to LHR and back? Or were these international flights on JB's service to the Caribbean and Latin America?

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Occupationalhazard October 28, 2019

@thebug622 Pls re read: "A former JetBlue employee is facing [b]up to[/b] 20 years in prison and [b]potentially[/b] $250,000 in fines. If she has no priors, expresses remorse, gets the right judge and can make at least some kind of restitution, then she won't get anything near that. It also depends on how interested Jet Blue is in having her prosecuted, i.e. they may just want a deterrent to future employees and not to send her away for the Rest of Forever. Her attorney will ask for probation, the prosecutor will ask for an upwards departure and the judge will settle on something in between, in line with what other, similar frauds have resulted in. Luckily for her, she won't have a string of widows and orphans coming in telling about how they were swindled out of their last farthing, but really, if one doesn't commit crimes, then one will not have these types of problems. O/H

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thebug622 October 27, 2019

20 years in prison and a $250000 fine for this offense? Seems that our comments should be expressing outrage that the law allows this type of penalty for a non violent crime. Murders usually pay less a penalty for this

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zgscl October 27, 2019

Seems like extremely poor internal controls to allow this to happen. Changing lax-Las to international ought to raise a whole bunch of red flags especially if done multiple times. Especially because last time I checked Jet Blue doesn’t even fly there...