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How jetBlue Stole Christmas

Update. February 23, 2010.  From work today, I finally booked my flight with jetBlue .  I was on the phone for sixty five minutes, sixty of those minutes were on hold.

There was a time when jetBlue was a special airline.   Unlike Southwest Airlines (aka the 'flying bus') with their festival seating, jetBlue was affordable, the staff was friendly, and there was a TV set at every seat.  An egalitarian airline, jetBlue has but one class.  I'm telling you, flying jetBlue was a real pleasure, but all good things must come to an end.

In 2007,  jetBlue let an airplane full of passengers sit on the tarmac for over  8 hours, and as a result, suffered their first real negative publicity to date.  Not long after this incident, jetBlue created a passenger bill of rights and promised to do better.  Well isn't that just super?!  Eager to show the world that they had mended their ways, jetBlue overcompensated during the next snow storm, and canceled way more flights than their competitors.  I know this to be true because every person flying into New York to attend my parent's 75th birthday party (their birthdays are very close, so they decided to hold one big party) never made it there, including me!  Every other airline found a way to get guests to my parent's party, but jetBlue had its head up its fuselage that day.

So, the airline decided to err on the side of caution and cancel a bunch of flights, and I missed my parent's 75th (I'll catch the next one, don't worry), but what REALLY made me angry was that on the day in question you couldn't get through to jetBlue on the phone OR the web!  I had no idea, at the time, if my flight was canceled or still on time.  Unacceptable.  I know a little bit about the web, and even if their site went down, they could have posted a static html page with flight info updated every 20 minutes.  Regardless, a company the size of jetBlue should have web infrastructure contingency plans, especially if they are not going to answer the phone.

Time heals all wounds, anger subsides, and I gave jetBlue another chance.  They seemed to back on track with customer service, and once again I was flying the jetBlue skies.  Flash forward to present day.  I tried to book a flight on jetBlue.com tonight using the jetBlue gift card my brother and sister-in-law gave me for Christmas.  After searching for flights, choosing seats, and entering my contact info, I tried to pay with said gift card only to be informed that gift cards cannot be processed online "at this time."  I was instructed to call customer service to place my reservation and pay with the gift card.  I spoke with an jetBlue rep who informed me that you can't use gift cards online at all, not just "at this time", and she transfered me to the gift card department.  After waiting on hold listening to static filled elevator music for 15 minutes, my cell phone's battery ran out of juice and died!

What is up with jetBlue?  For such a 'hip' airline, they haven't quite mastered the web (or the phone for that matter).  Hopefully, the same rates will still be available tomorrow when I try once again to give jetBlue my money.  Come to think of it, they already have my money!  Even worse, they have my Christmas present money!!  jetBlue stole my Christmas present!!!  What's next?  I bet jetBlue goes to baseball games and steals foul balls from little children.  I heard a rumor that jetBlue hates puppies an kittens.  jetBlue goes to the movies and gives away the ending.  jetBlue's favorite software is classic AOL with dial-up.  jetBlue has two small German children in a cage, fattening them up with delicious food with plans to cook and eat them!  OK, so that last one was from Hansel and Gretel, and I'm pretty sure I did see jetBlue petting a puppy once, but the AOL thing is true.