I already wrote to Speak UP about this. There are so many things which do make jetBlue different than legacy and non-legacy carriers alike. I just spent $550 on a round trip from California to JFK--more than I have ever spent on jetBlue on a non-holiday flight. Every company has to charge a fair price for its product and in most cases for US travel, I will fly to a more inconvenient airport and take the train or pay more to fly on jetBlue. My family lives more than 100 miles from the nearest airport served by jetBlue and I regulary pay extra to take Amtrak from NYC so I can use jetBlue.

The problem for me as a loyal passenger and a share holder of the company is that increasing change fees is not the best policy for either jetBlue or the passengers. If more revenue is needed, as I said, I am willing to pay extra for a nicer seat, better entertainment options, etc. I am not willing to throw away my ticket and then pay the higher fare because my old one has no value. At that point, one looks to see what the options are and this could easily mean lost revenue as passengers just buy a new ticket on another carrier.

Also the value of a true blue award is greatly devalued if I have to pay $100 to change my plans on a one way award. Usually the maximum value is around $219. Beyond that award availability is often not there. One change and that goes down to $119. Why stay loyal to jetBlue?

I really wish that the executives would dust off their business plan and look again at the reasons for starting up jetBlue. They saw a need for a carrier in the US that would be different than the legacy carriers. One that passengers can look to as providing better service and not taking advantage of people. This reputation has gotten them this far. Why alienate passengers now.

People do have to get used to paying higher fares. There is no question about that. They do not have to get used to being charged exorbitant change fees. This is my one argument against booking co-workers on a legacy carrier. They can change their mind and not be robbed blind.

Looks like that "business plan" was thrown out the door with David Neeleman.

Sorry for jumping in on this conversation late, but I just sent in a Speak Up before I read the forum. My message to JetBlue was fairly consistent with what most of you are saying:

- $100 is too high for a change fee and the highest among low fare carriers
- I may avoid booking flights if I think I may need to make a change, hurting revenue if I don't fly instead of booking a flight and then paying a nominal change fee like I've done in the past
- this is too dramatic a change from the customer-friendly policies of the past
- I support increasing revenue where there is additional value (e.g., EML), but not where it's purely penalizing the customer

Let's see what kind of response we get from Customer Commitment.

Bill

Dear Mr. (Jerseyguy),

Thank you for contacting JetBlue Airways regarding the changes to our fee structure. We appreciate
the opportunity to respond to your comments.

We regret your disappointment in our newly revised fees and have forwarded your comments to our Director of Reservations for internal review. As the price of fuel rises, carriers are forced to increase revenues from different fees instead of simply raising fares to offset increased costs. If JetBlue doesn't capture some of this fee revenue, our profitability will suffer a loss and we will
not be able to remain a viable business in this competitive industry. The fees were revised only after careful consideration on the part of all JetBlue Leadership.

We do recognize that these increases may cause some of our customers to feel disappointment; however, we are striving to keep our fares as low as possible so that our customers may continue to choose JetBlue. In comparison studies, we have found our fees to be among the lowest in the
industry.

We value you as a JetBlue customer and hope you will afford us a future opportunity to welcome you
onboard.

Sincerely,

Jenny
Customer Commitment Crew
JetBlue Airways

This is absurd.

They should at least waive the change fee for frequent flyers & for award tickets!

It turns out that JetBlue once again has one of the lowest change fees in the industry: United, US Airways, and Continental are now all charging $150 to change a ticket, and there are murmurs in the forums that the other major carriers will follow suit shortly.

This is by no means intended as a compliment to JetBlue.

The whole industry is sick, and needs to build a better, more sustainable business model asap.

How much is SW's change fee?

Airlines are NoT consumer friendly.

Jetblue used to be, they no longer are.

You as a consumer, take that into account when you make your future flight plans.

I didn't say the lowest. Southwest has essentially the best change policy in the industry, and they are, perhaps not coincidentally, the only profitable airline. Unlike JetBlue and some other airlines, they do not offer any free standby or same-day change options, but on the whole, their $0 changes can't be beat.

Jerseyguy, I got the EXACT same response from the same person (Jenny) quoted below:

I wonder why the airline industry is so uncreative to think about other business models.

For example: The change fee doesn't apply to those who buy a refundable fare. Of course, those fares are usually insanely higher.

Why couldn't airlines allow passengers to pick their fare based on their sense of risk as to how confident they are that they will/or won't need to make a change.

deepest discount fare, non changeable, non refundable (but perhaps a small refund as a courtesy for reporting plan to not use)
next highest fare, subject to 100 change fee and non refundable
next highest fare, subject to 50 change fee but non refundable
next highest fare, changeable but non refundable
highest fare fare, changeable and refundable

I would guess airlines might make some money on the people who get burned not able to use nonchangeable/nonrefundable tickets. At the end of the day, it might create the necessary fee structure for more revenue, but at least give the perception to organized and reliable customers that they were a bit more in control of their risk.

Air Canada

It gets confusing, but does make sense. Yet, that's an airline across international borders! Where are the U.S. airlines getting creative?

On some routes and some tickets some US-based carriers do this sort of thing. CO sells a lot of H fares (one below full Y) that are non-changable and refundable less a small fee. It isn't perfect, but it is better than the money remaining in a travel credit form.

Ultimately I think that the breakdown of the market consists of people who have a company policy (foolish or not, and I think it generally is) that requires a fully refundable purchase. For everyone else the policy is buy cheap. There is no middle ground. Why would you pay more to have a ticket that you can pay slightly less to change? The margin there is too small, though I guess you could get some people who don't understand it and make more revenue by fooling your customers. If the "reduced" change fee is $25 v $100, how much more would you pay for that ticket? Anyone willing to pay more than ~$25 more is doing something wrong in their math or is too flakey to figure out a travel plan and stick to it. I understand that things change from time to time, but how many times are you changing a ticket for a trip that you're going on??

My reply from Speak Up was slightly customized to what I wrote in my e-mail, but so close to the two already pasted here that it's not worth repeating again.

Maybe if they get enough complaints we have some hope of the policy being changed.

Bill