heathpack

My mother is scheduled to fly home today Dec 28, 2010 from Los Angeles (Burbank, actually) to JFK. Checking flight status on line, we learned that the flight has been cancelled. Mother has not been contacted in any way by Jet Blue on any of the multiple numbers they have. When we try to call Jet Blue, they say they are too busy to even put you on hold and they just disconnect you- no option for requesting a call back or holding. There is no information on the website other than that the flight is cancelled.

I can see no availability out of LA (Burbank, LAX, Long Beach) for a non-red eye flight until Saturday.

My question is: is there any way to get in touch with Jet Blue to try to rebook? Or do we just sit around and hope they call us at some point?

Thanks,
H

bmg42000

Try using twitter

heathpack

Twitter? What are you talking about? Jet Blues employees are noodling around on Twitter rather than manning the phones? How will Twitter help anything?

sbm12

Because, believe it or not, it is much faster to handle the types of requests that rebookings involve through an asynchronous process like Twitter rather than over the phone in a synchronous manner. If you don't see any flights you want to take until Monday anyways then what difference does it make if they don't get to you today?

As for why they do not call everyone who has a canceled flight, it is because there are only so many agents and they're dealing with the folks who are calling in. With hundreds of flights canceled and ~120 passengers on each flight that would be a lot of calls to make with very limited ROI.

JetBlue uses Twitter as an official customer service avenue just like the phones and it is quite a useful tool, both for them and for customers. But if you don't want to use it that's your choice. You asked for options and got a pretty good one. Feel free to dismiss it out of hand.

heathpack

Surely Jet Blue could send out an automated notification of a flight cancellation without directly requiring a human to make the call.

As far as getting something rescheduled, "what difference does it make?". Um, well,maybe because pet sitter needs to be contacted, prescription meds may need to be extended, car service needs to be rescheduled, oh yeah and the fact that 3000 other people are also rescheduling and potentially grabbing the avail seats. Also, is it not possible that Jet Blue has held some of those seats for the purposes of rebooking.

But thanks so much for your helpful reply.

By the way, we do not Twitter and were unaware that JB does. So asking for some explaination of "try Twitter" is not dismissing the idea out of hand. It's actually just asking how Twitter will help.

Sheesh.

H

sbm12

Which would add what value? If you're not particularly inclined to pay attention to the fact that there was a rather major blizzard in NYC the past couple days then you'll find out when you go to check-in.

If you've already looked and know that you cannot get the flight that you want until the 1st then waiting a bit on hold or trying to get through later likely isn't going to kill your chances of getting the flight. That was my point.

It was the part where you suggested they were just "noodling around" instead of actually doing something useful that I found questionable. If you don't know what it is or how they use it then it is quite easy to ask those questions without the presumptuous and derogatory bits tossed in the inquiry.

heathpack

Dude, have you actually even READ my posts?

First, I clearly stated that one could not hold. On multiple calls Jet Blue's reservation system gave us a message that they were trying the best they could but they could not handle the call. Then JB would disconnect you. You could NOT hold or enter your number for a callback later.

Second, it is pretty obvious that if JB has not contacted my mother yet we are aware the flight has been cancelled that we are well aware of the weather situation and that we have been proactive about checking flight status. Flight was scheduled ON TIME at 11pm yesterday, this AM went we checked, it was cancelled.

Third, since we had heard nothing from JB, it is possible that JB had already rebooked my mother but not informed us (in the same manner that they did not inform us of the cancelled flight). Likewise, it is possible that the flight availability I see as a JB customer attempting a new booking via their website is not tha same as that JB agents see when they are rebooking flights.

Really all I was hoping to learn on this forum is whether there is a better way to contact JB. Would not even be opposed to opening a Twitter acct if that would have been helpful- however I was not sure that the poster who suggested that was making the suggestion because that would actually solve the problem. Many people advocate using social media to try to "shame" an airline into a specific result. I have no interest in any nonsense of that ilk in a situation like this. However, we went with the option of pushing redial over and over until we at least made it into the queue and onto hold. The flight has been rebooked- first avail was the red eye on New Years Eve.

TomT

Greetings:

I have to laugh at the comments above............we give phone numbers to airlines such as Jet Blue, we go along with EMail....now without any great big notice they are using something called "Twitter" and you are expected to help them along by trying that..........NUTS to Jetblue......

If I had ran my company the way JetBlue runs thier airline I could not afford to fly................

I know, I know, I should ask one of my grabdchilren how it works.....again, nuts.......I am 80, still fly my 75,000 miles per year.....but, never again with JetBlue........

Pardon my steam....i am a bit disturbed at JetBlue service.....Have a nice Holiday all

caphis

"Something called Twitter"? Twitter has over 190,000,000 (that's 190 million) active users. No one suggested using Twitter as a way to help JetBlue along; it was suggested as a way to help the OP. Yes, JetBlue is using social media to help rebook customers who can't get through on the phones or to an airport. Hundreds of customers were assisted in rebooking via Twitter alone yesterday. Hundreds of customers who would have otherwise had to wait on hold, be disconnected, or have to wait at an airport. It was a good suggestion made to the OP, and his/her choice as to whether to take it or not.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you're expecting. A dedicated one-on-one travel agent to rebook you? All of the majors are facing the same reaccommodation problems, if the outcry of frustration across the forums here and elsewhere on the internet are to believe. It's a difficult situation, and you'd be making the same post in the Delta forum had you encountered this situation on them.

To the OP, out of curiosity, how was the flight originally booked?

sbm12

Yes. And I answered the specific points you raised pretty clearly, I thought.
Right. And I said you could also try back later and the net effect on you would likely not be so tremendous if you already know that the seats you ideally want are still several days away. Unless they add extra sections - and that doesn't seem likely, especially not on transcons - odds of seats magically appearing just because you're talking to an agent are pretty low.

Great. So why do they need to call you to tell you that it was canceled? You seem to have done the right thing, checked and learned of the new status. While I suppose it could be nice for the airlines to call everyone - either human or an auto-dialer or an email - the net result is the same. And if all they did was call to tell you it was canceled then folks would be mad that they got a call that the flight was canceled but weren't automatically rebooked on the next departing flight. If you're going to have 99% of the customers end up calling in anyways because they do not like the "fix" then the outbound calls seem a bit of a waste to me, especially so in a scenario like this one where the cause of the cancellations is so well known and the breadth of them is so significant.

True, though checking the reservation online should get you an answer on that one pretty quickly.

Maybe, but highly unlikely as noted above.

Okay, but when you ask questions and then get a response that you don't understand it probably would be useful to not immediately assume that the response was unhelpful. And assuming that the company's use of a platform you admittedly do not understand is "noodling away rather than manning the phones" is a bit misguided.

You asked for help. You got a great suggestion and you immediately turned on it. I absolutely do not understand that approach one single bit. Can you also continue to just press redial? Sure, and that also worked out eventually for you. One of the great things about FlyerTalk is its ability to expose folks to new things and new ideas and new ways of accomplishing the same old task. And the help offered is rather sincere the vast majority of the time.

Sorry if my post came across as snarky but it can be frustrating when reasonable offers of help are dismissed because the recipient doesn't understand them rather than them actually being a bad idea.

LiaJB

For the record, agents do not see any seats that aren't also available online. What you see is what we do. (To end the confusion there... so calling an agent will not make more seats show up.)

ETA: That's not saying that we're not occasionally lucky and see a seat pop up that someone else just cancelled/abandoned while we're on the phone with you... but in general, what you see is what you get!

magiciansampras

Um, isn't that obvious? The Monday seats are not guaranteed to be there forever. @:-)

This is the exact problem my brother faced. He saw seats available online but could not get through to B6 to change his ticket. Hours later those seats were history.

Unfortunately he didn't know that you need to twitter JetBlue during IROPS in order to get through to them.

heathpack

Sheesh Dude, you are way snarky. The Twitter suggestion was not dismissed. A request was made for further clarification. Yes, it initially seemed strange to me that JB would not have enough manpower to answer phones but they could have employees posting on Twitter. However, if JB is on Twitter actually solving rebooking issues, great. You could actually just reply to me "that poster said 'Try Twitter' because JB could actually rebook you via that mechanism." THAT would have been a useful reponse. I am no technophobe, would join Twitter for 15 minutes if there was a reason too.

Also mea culpa, I suppose, if I do not know how JB internally handles its seats available for rebooking. It seems nothing but logical that the more time that goes by, the less seat availability there will be- hence my desire to learn the most expedient way to contact JB.

JB could easily send customers an email, text or voicemail that says, "Due to the blizzard in NY, your flight has been cancelled. Contact us at 1-800-JBFLYSHIGH or on Twitter to rebook. Flights may not be available for several days. You can also cancel your flight and obtain a refund." You claim this would accomplish nothing, yet it would have answered every question I had and obviatated the need for this thread (and your snark).

Don't assume everyone who does not know the intricacies of how JB operates is a moron. Don't assume everyone who posts here has failed to make themselves aware of the weather situation in NY. Don't assume is someone asks what going to Twitter will accomplish is dismissing the idea out of hand. And if you thought the tone of my initial response was off kilter, why compound the situation with snark?

H

magiciansampras

^ Well said.

sbm12

Sorry, but me saying the same thing a second time doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Did you really think that the person suggested Twitter because it wasn't another option to solve the problem?

And your initial response - the "noodling around" bit - was pretty dismissive and snarky IMO. I actually don't really think my first response was, but I suppose that's just my opinion.

Much like the initial suggestion to try Twitter, which was useful IMO, I offered the explanations as to why Twitter would be helpful. Sorry the suggestions and explanations weren't as clear and useful as you wanted. That's life when you post online and hope for the bust, I suppose.