LilZeppelin

This is key in limiting the flexibility if you cannot book within 3 days

ScottNYC

One thing to note...despite the T&C's saying "Pass holders will have access to every available seat on every flight with no blackout dates", Even More Legroom (EML) seats are NOT available with this offer.

The detailed T&C's say "Passes may not be used to
purchase other products or services that are sold separately, such as Even More Legroom seats".

That would be even BETTER if you could book EML seats! I guess I won't complain though.

nsx

Back when I bought the 3-week Eastern pass, I booked the flights 2 months ahead. It was quite tricky to flit about the Caribbean when several of the islands only had service 2 days per week. Yes, this deal is for leisure travel.

jetsetter

*The change and cancellation provisions seem a little onerous. I don't always know exactly what time I will want to go. They should offer standby on your ticketed day of departure and a more liberal cancellation rule. Like maybe allow 3 cancellations in the pass month. I suspect if a pax arrives at the ATO with in 2 hours or there abouts the ATO will probably honor some sort of unofficial flat tire rule; and
*It is odd they don't sell or book these on the web, but they probably don't have the IT infrastructure set up. I wonder how they are booking and ticketing these PNRs in their CRS?
*Is the system really going to be smart enough to penalize a pax who no shows a flight? I wonder how that will be done IT/system wise? I've always thought B6 should just overbhook flights like the rest of the industry. If overbooking volunteer solicitiation is done correctly it is not that much of an issue. Personally I love oversales, and I may not fly B6 because I know I couldn't play the bumping game if they don't overbook. Overbooking would presumably allow them to offer more flexible change/cancellation terms.

Did any of you guys have any idea this was coming? Anyone think the rest of the industry will match in any way?

adambadam

Someone above posted a quote from the Web site that said the pass would be suspended until the fee is paid. My guess is that they will pretty much just treat the entire pass like one big PNR so that they can figure out where you have been and where you are going/ what you have missed.

amps

Ok, so I don't fly Jetblue because It's not around me, but I saw this that might be intresting to you folks. Sorry if it's posted already, I search didn't see it.

http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal...etblue-f-5092/


Never mind just saw the thread. I must be blind.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetbl...nth-599-a.html

Seat 2A

I flew EA's Unlimited Mileage Fare twice in 1978 and again in 1980. On the second one, I did 104,000 miles in three weeks. I just wanted to fly a whole lot and fly I did. Lots of good meals back then and better leg room and seat comfort as well.

I've flown Jet Blue. It was like going on a 4th grade field trip on a bus (Many of the passengers behaved like 4th graders) compared to flying the legacy carriers in the "good old days". Or even today. Still, for those of you who've got the time, this is a great deal! It still would be even if you didn't get mileage credit.

Have fun and happy contrails!

nerd

Well, I'm sure a lot of things are different compared to your "good old days".

I've only flown 5 segments on JetBlue (all transcons) and none resembled a 4th grade field trip. YMMV.

nsx

I have a theory about these observations. FTers who have elite status on a legacy carrier tend to fly a non-legacy carrier, JetBlue or Southwest or Frontier or whoever, only for trips they are paying for themselves. These tend to be vacation trips to vacation destinations at peak vacation times. Such flights are packed with leisure travelers, much more so than an average flight on the airline.

We all tend to extrapolate from our own flight experiences, but if you haven't flown a representative sample of an airline's flights, meaning different markets at both peak and non-peak times, you don't have an accurate picture for anyone but yourself. For example, 95% of flights are on Southwest intra-California at commuting hours. The passengers are mostly business travelers. They know the routine, and the flights are uneventful. But I know that flights to LAS or MCO are a whole different animal.

RSW

I was getting ready for bed, and I heard about a $599 unlimited flying on my local news. I thought it was another stupid ploy to get you to watch the news through the commercial (not for me, thanks to TiVo) and could not believe it! I promptly had my pass issued. Thanks JetBlue! ^

nerd

Oh, I completely agree. There's a range of passengers depending on the market and the time of day.

Just as there's a range of expectations across passengers. There's always the traveler who considers anything short of a cabin full of suits to be a "4th grade field trip".

ctuttle

This is a great deal, if Jet Blue were in my market I would jump on this as I would tend to look at if you took just three trips you would benefit. My initial feeling on the $100 cancelation fee was negative, but then I thought if there wasn't something like this people would book "just in case" tickets which could prevent people from actually booking tickets with a lot of bogus bookings. If they are allowing people to get last seat availability and just a 3-day advance purchase, it is a reasonable tradeoff. Allowing frequent flyer miles on these flights is even more amazing.

My other thought is I would think that after the deadline to purchase these passes you might see a huge fare sale. While they don't want to make those who purchased these passes angry with no availability they can't afford to let too many people to fly 30+ segments (or 60+ segments with connections). Of course an empty seat on the plane isn't generating any revenue, so why not, plus you might actually get some $100 cancellation fees.

It will be interesting to see if any other airline matches with any similar promotion.

HCA

Too bad I am in busy season for my work and I don't have enough vacation time.

Wish they can announce "earlier" so we can plan for this.

sbm12

Indeed, it is built as a single "master" PNR that you must reference to book additional individual flights, each of which will have their own PNR. So that is how they will control things. All bookings do require calling in, not doing it online.
EML seats are not a separate fare bucket. So it isn't like those seats are blocked from booking using the pass (really only an issue on the A320 where there are a significant number of them). If only EML seats are left for assignment you just won't get a seat assignment at the time of booking. You might get the EML for free and you might get stuck in a middle in the back. But it won't prevent you from booking in on a flight if those are the only unassigned seats left; it simply won't confirm your seating there unless you pay the $10/25/40 EML fee.
NP.
You should be able to see them by doing a dummy booking on jetblue.com or at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/. A r/t JFK-SJU looks like ~$46 in taxes. A r/t MCO-BOG is closer to $75.

Also of note (and potentially VERY limiting for a crazy like me) is that apparently you can only initiate travel from any one city once per day. I'll have to see how that affects things with my grand plan to fly as much as possible on those weekends I still have free that month.

iahphx

A fascinating promo. Curiously, it seems to have captured more of the imagination of the slickdeals type crowd than the flyertalk crowd. I guess flyertalkers like individual "mileage run" type fares better.

I have a feeling this deal is going to backfire on JetBlue, though. Primarily because they're offering "last seat availability." It's not rocket science to conclude that all the flights on Thursday nights, Fridays, Sundays and Mondays to desirable destinations (particularly long haul) are going to become fully booked. This will deprive them of their best revenue opportunities. Few will be using the passes on, say, Tuesday afternoons (on flights that would otherwise go out with empty seats).