I'd like to take a moment and tell y'all about what I imagined to be the ABSOLUTE TRIP FROM HELL.
I booked a flight on the 7th for the 15th, paying $5 more than American to fly Jetblue and see what all the fuss was about. Little did I know about a freak ice storm hitting the northeast.
My flight was scheduled to leave on the 15th at 7PM, getting into Laguardia at 10ish. Not too bad, right? I start watching the news and on Tuesday the freak storm hits and thousands of people are stranded and pissed off. Wednesday rolls around, and out of morbid curiosity I tracked the flight I was GOING to take on the 14th that was supposed to leave.
Estimated departure: 7PM
Estimated arrival: 10PM
Acutal departure: 2AM
Actual arrival: 5AM
This didnt look good. Thursday rolled around, I got my ass out of bed, bags packed, ready to go. As of noon my flight was on time. As of 2:30 it was pushed back to 8:30. As it got closer to 6, it went from 8:30 to 10:30 which would have put me into LGA at damn near 2AM. This was a nogo.
Call after call to the airline got the following message: Hi, thank you for calling Jetblue. We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Please try your call again later. *click*
I think I called back close to 100 times, I havent gotten my cell phone bill in yet so I couldnt check. Finally,after 40 minutes on hold I get a reservationist who says she can change my flight from LGA to JFK for the difference in fare - which was an additional $300. Not bad, considering I only paid $220 for the flight to begin with. I told her it was totally ridiculous and hung up.
By now the departure was looking closer to midnight. I call reservations back and it takes another 40 minutes to get someone. She understands the problem and has to put it through to a supervisor, who gets on after a long wait and takes care of business. It's now 7:30 at night and I'm going for dinner after spending an hour and a half on the goddamn phone getting my flight straighted out. I've got the 8:30 to JFK instead of LGA.
Flight time rolls around, I'm out the door at 6AM for the airport. All moves smoothly until I find out a fat person has occupied my window seat. He looked settled in so I took the aisle and asked one of the flight crew if any other windows were open. They were pretty cool, and didnt get me a seat but did mistake me for an employee. Eh. Must be the shoes. Anyhow, I got into JFK and holy god that place is disgusting. Speaking of cool, the pilot reported "Weather at JFK is pretty much the same except about 25 degrees Why you'd want to go there is beyond me, but your bags are already loaded into the cargo hold...." I laughed.
Jumped the A train to midtown and lost all feeling in my face as I was waiting for the train at howard beach. Get to my aunt sues place and I notice a few things.
1. My clothes are drenched in rubbing alcohol. No, I did not pack alcohol. No, I did not bring liquids. Yes, it was extremely odd. It was just the inside of my bags too, not even the outside was wet.
2. Someone stole my backpack. My empty backpack I put in the bag so I could shlep back bagels and sweaters for everyone. The TSA fsckers.
I called Jetblue, they had no clue what the hell was going on. That week they had like 5000 lost/misrouted bags at JFK. Criminy. A few days later I get the apology email from Neeleman and it says I'll get a voucher for my travel troubles.
The flight back was uneventful, I called in the baggage complaint to JFK and they forwarded it to central baggage who called me back yesterday. I spoke with a delightful girl named Julie, who I thought had the absolute sexiest voice ever btw. She offered me a $150 voucher towards future travel, which I took. Plus, I got $30 for filing an intial baggage complaint. So I have $180 towards my next Jetblue flight. Then I mentioned that there was something in the apology email about a voucher...she looked into it and based on my intial flight delay I would be getting a free R/T ticket anywhere in the US that should be coming in next week. Double awesome.
In short, ,fly Jetblue. They're wicked cool.
P.S. Buy their stock after the earnings. They're going to take a huge Q1 charge from the storm that I dont think is factored into the stock yet.
I booked a flight on the 7th for the 15th, paying $5 more than American to fly Jetblue and see what all the fuss was about. Little did I know about a freak ice storm hitting the northeast.
My flight was scheduled to leave on the 15th at 7PM, getting into Laguardia at 10ish. Not too bad, right? I start watching the news and on Tuesday the freak storm hits and thousands of people are stranded and pissed off. Wednesday rolls around, and out of morbid curiosity I tracked the flight I was GOING to take on the 14th that was supposed to leave.
Estimated departure: 7PM
Estimated arrival: 10PM
Acutal departure: 2AM
Actual arrival: 5AM
This didnt look good. Thursday rolled around, I got my ass out of bed, bags packed, ready to go. As of noon my flight was on time. As of 2:30 it was pushed back to 8:30. As it got closer to 6, it went from 8:30 to 10:30 which would have put me into LGA at damn near 2AM. This was a nogo.
Call after call to the airline got the following message: Hi, thank you for calling Jetblue. We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Please try your call again later. *click*
I think I called back close to 100 times, I havent gotten my cell phone bill in yet so I couldnt check. Finally,after 40 minutes on hold I get a reservationist who says she can change my flight from LGA to JFK for the difference in fare - which was an additional $300. Not bad, considering I only paid $220 for the flight to begin with. I told her it was totally ridiculous and hung up.
By now the departure was looking closer to midnight. I call reservations back and it takes another 40 minutes to get someone. She understands the problem and has to put it through to a supervisor, who gets on after a long wait and takes care of business. It's now 7:30 at night and I'm going for dinner after spending an hour and a half on the goddamn phone getting my flight straighted out. I've got the 8:30 to JFK instead of LGA.
Flight time rolls around, I'm out the door at 6AM for the airport. All moves smoothly until I find out a fat person has occupied my window seat. He looked settled in so I took the aisle and asked one of the flight crew if any other windows were open. They were pretty cool, and didnt get me a seat but did mistake me for an employee. Eh. Must be the shoes. Anyhow, I got into JFK and holy god that place is disgusting. Speaking of cool, the pilot reported "Weather at JFK is pretty much the same except about 25 degrees Why you'd want to go there is beyond me, but your bags are already loaded into the cargo hold...." I laughed.
Jumped the A train to midtown and lost all feeling in my face as I was waiting for the train at howard beach. Get to my aunt sues place and I notice a few things.
1. My clothes are drenched in rubbing alcohol. No, I did not pack alcohol. No, I did not bring liquids. Yes, it was extremely odd. It was just the inside of my bags too, not even the outside was wet.
2. Someone stole my backpack. My empty backpack I put in the bag so I could shlep back bagels and sweaters for everyone. The TSA fsckers.
I called Jetblue, they had no clue what the hell was going on. That week they had like 5000 lost/misrouted bags at JFK. Criminy. A few days later I get the apology email from Neeleman and it says I'll get a voucher for my travel troubles.
The flight back was uneventful, I called in the baggage complaint to JFK and they forwarded it to central baggage who called me back yesterday. I spoke with a delightful girl named Julie, who I thought had the absolute sexiest voice ever btw. She offered me a $150 voucher towards future travel, which I took. Plus, I got $30 for filing an intial baggage complaint. So I have $180 towards my next Jetblue flight. Then I mentioned that there was something in the apology email about a voucher...she looked into it and based on my intial flight delay I would be getting a free R/T ticket anywhere in the US that should be coming in next week. Double awesome.
In short, ,fly Jetblue. They're wicked cool.
P.S. Buy their stock after the earnings. They're going to take a huge Q1 charge from the storm that I dont think is factored into the stock yet.
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