A good customer service experience with JetBlue today

[Weather_Lady]

No, I don't work for JetBlue! I just wanted to share that sometimes, you can still catch a glimpse of good old-fashioned customer service.

Much to my frustration, JetBlue had canceled and changed our return flight to another one departing nearly two hours later. Per their policies, this meant that if I wanted, I could change to a different return flight only from the same airport (or a designated partner one nearby - there was a term of art the CSR used for it, but I don't recall it now) without incurring the $100 per person change fee ($400 for my family of four). However, there were no return flights to our "home" airport that were within the right time frame, and/or that wouldn't result in a significant additional cost (due to the fares having risen dramatically since I booked).

I did, however, find a conveniently-timed and price-comparable return flight to a different airport in our area, 20 minutes further from our home and in the exact opposite direction from the one we'd been planning to fly in/out of. Of course, this airport was not a designated partner of our home airport. So then the problem became, there were no flights to our original airport near the time and price we originally booked, and we can't afford to pay the $100 per person to change our flights to the second airport, but it would be impossible for us to keep the return flight as [re]scheduled. I was between a rock and a hard place.

So I called JetBlue, explained everything to a customer service rep who spent nearly half an hour assisting me and getting approvals from higher-ups -- and in the end, they permitted us to change our entire itinerary from two-leg flights out of the initial airport to direct flights to/from the other airport, and made a "one-time exception" and waived the change fees.

I realize that once upon a time, this level of responsiveness (especially where the airline created the problem by changing a flight on us) was the norm, and something like this wouldn't even be worthy of comment. However, I've had enough experience with "modern customer service" to know that such experiences are now a vanishing breed, especially when it comes to air travel. $400 saved with a phone call, and the new flights are at the times we wanted, and direct, no less! I'm feeling very blessed and totally stoked at the moment!

 

[maryszhi]

amazing! i wish more airlines were like this....

 

[Minthorne]

Huhzah for good service and good outcomes! Huhzah I say!

 

[Rob562]

Friends recently had a similar experience with Jetblue. A bunch of friends were heading to New Orleans on various airlines. Most were Jetblue, at least one was on American.

Then came Hurricane Isaac.

My friend's American flight was canceled and he had to wait on hold for 95 mintues just to talk to someone to reschedule his flight. Meanwhile, Jetblue took the pro-active approach and emailed everyone impacted and gave them a special code they could use to go online and cancel/change/rebook their flights themselves for no charge.

My friend ended up canceling his American flight and booking on Jetblue. (Admittedly he typically flies Jetblue, but he had frequent flier miles on American that were about to expire and he wanted to use them up)

-Rob

 

[Briangwen7]

JETBLUE WILL ALWAYS BE THE BEST AIRLINE! ​

I will only fly them, there great! ​

 

[Cosmic Commando]

I had a similar experience with Southwest lately, and they handled it as well as could be expected. My family of four was flying from BUF-LAX on a direct (not a non-stop) flight on 11/2/12... there was only one flight number for us even though our plane landed. Somewhere along the way (maybe this plane needed to go for maintenance or whatever), they changed it so that there was a different plane heading from the layover to LAX arriving at the same time as the original direct flight... but now there's two flight numbers. The thing that really screwed us up was that we paid for the tickets three different ways for the four of us (flight award, cash, and points)... so three confirmation numbers for four people. The system just did not like this! I ended up on the right flight with my daughter, my wife was getting into LAX four hours later, and my 5YO son was on a completely different flight by himself! No problems, though, Southwest took care of it. No mention of fare differences or anything; they just got us on the flight that we wanted to be on.

 

[Ray Karen Kaitie]

it's nice to hear of good costumer service. we only fly jet blue. we have always been treated well by crew and staff. we sometimes pay a bit more for flights, but sometimes it's worth it to work with someone you trust... there's more to service then the best price, you usually get what you pay for.