Ok, I always fly AA, but figure I want to give B6 a shot. FareCompare has a ton of flights on B6 from JFK-AUS in Jan for $198 but it's not bookable as far as I can tell...is this usual? I know that jetBlue is running a promo for $99 o/w until Dec 12th, but not after then. Is this fare I'm seeing on FareCompare (but not able to book) just a residual of that (e.g., fare is still "available" but no seats left on it) or might it be a pricing that is going to hit soon to match AA/UA on that route?

Thanks for the insight...I'm just not familiar with how B6 prices its routes and manages availability/inventory.

JetBlue flights are typically best booked/priced on www.jetblue.com. My experience has been that not all destinations are loaded into the larger world, for example farecompare, expedia, etc. It seems to me that on routes when JetBlue wants to definitely be the price leader, they will post to the world.

Also, if you've decided on specific days, jetblue.com is a pretty good site as you see all of the day's flights and associated fares very easily. Flying mostly point to point makes that fairly easy to do. Although if you know rough travel dates, its fairly easy to move from day to day.

B6's inventory is usually hidden because they keep their info to themselves which means if you're used to looking at something like www.expertflyer.com you're going to have to wean yourself from that. Only in some cases will you be able to see available inventory. I've seen fares go up/down without a fare sale which indicates to me they play with inventory just as much as the legacies, but without the EF data, its tougher to see it happen and to what extent.

If you don't want to use jetblue.com, www.kayak.com works fairly good for JetBlue flights. As for www.farecompare.com, I find many of its options to be unbookable with other carriers; wouldn't surprise me that the same is happenning with B6.

I believe that B6 is now showing its fares in the GDS systems (what FareCompare & ITA use to show the fares) but not availability. So the tools may show that the fare exists but won't be able to find the seats. That doesn't necessarially mean that there aren't seats available at those fares. WN operates the same way, though they hide their fares from many GDS systems as well (though not all of them, as corporate TAs can usually book flights on WN).

As mentioned above, go to JetBlue.com to find out for sure.

Thanks.

Actually, I believe jetBlue shows its availability in the GDS systems. The fares have come up in ITA based on their availibility. You can now book B6 tickets on OTAs such as travelocity also. You can also see the seat buckets and availability in those types of online tools as well (although I think they only go up to a max of 4, as opposed to the standard max of 7 or 9).