On Sunday I covered a JetBlue vacations deal that offered $150 off domestic vacation packages and $250 off international vacation packages with no minimum purchase requirement. I also wrote about how to use it for free airfare, hotels, and car rentals even if you only needed one of those.
Before I made those posts I booked a dummy booking to confirm that it would give a confirmation number with a $0 purchase. I called back to cancel that booking as I had no intention of using it and the rep confirmed that ticketed vacations for adults would be honored. However vacations booked for those under 18 have been cancelled.
Some DD readers have already flown and stayed in hotels for free with the deal!
4 hours after I posted the deal JetBlue added a $2,000 or $2,500 minimum purchase to the deal’s terms.
JetBlue has to be commended for honoring their glitches though. In December a glitch lowered the price of transcontinental flights to $64 and their website remained jammed for a day. They even honored the fare for people who called about not being able to access their website.
In June they announced a promotion targeting Virgin America flyers due to JetBlue losing the bid to buy them out to Alaska. They had intended to target people that had Virgin America miles but forgot to exclude people transferring in points from SPG with a 25% bonus. In the end, Alaska Airlines even bumped up the Virgin America points by another 30% and JetBlue decided to honor the promotion despite high-level talks about whether to try to bail. We flew to Boston and got over 300,000 points for our mileage run.
But this was far from the first vacation package glitch:
-In 2006 I posted a deal for a flight+hotel package to Hawaii for $87 thanks to a $400 off Northwest Airlines vacation package that didn’t set a minimum purchase. I was in a Smicha program then in LA and went with my chavrusa to Oahu for Purim. In 48 hours we brought a suitcase of food for the local shluchim, bought Hawaiian print Kipot, paid our respects at Pearl Harbor, climbed Diamond Head, hiked to Manoa Falls, snorkeled in Hanauma Bay, and drove around the island.
I fell in love with the state and have been back 6 times since, including a month-long honeymoon spanning 4 islands.
-In March 2010 Expedia offered $400 off vacations packages to the Bahamas, resulting in hundreds of DansDeals readers getting free airfare+hotels there.
-On a Saturday in November 2010 Expedia once again offered $300 off vacation packages to Las Vegas and other cities. A friend had asked me if we wanted to shoot some pool that night. I’m not much of a pool guy, but agreed when Mimi said she was in. When I logged onto my laptop after Shabbos, I saw the deal on DDF and got involved with posting it and writing about its potential.
In the meantime, I told Mimi that the Expedia deal would keep me busy all night. At that time there were only 1,100 @DansDeals followers on Twitter and the deal lasted until 3:40AM the next day.
Eventually, Mimi told me what was really going on that night, there were dozens of people waiting for a surprise birthday party for me. Oops. That wouldn’t be the only birthday party I nearly missed due to a glitch, United’s 4 Mile Island glitch happened just before Rafi’s 1st birthday party.
Meanwhile, once at the party everyone wanted to book all-expense paid vacations to Las Vegas. Just about everyone in attendance wound up booking Vegas vacations with free airfare, Bellagio stays, airport limo transfers, Cirque du Soleil tickets, etc. Due to issues with our room the Bellagio even wound up buying us kosher steak and lamb chops for dinner.
While watching the Pats-Texans game this past Saturday night with a group of friends we got into a discussion of the free Vegas vacation deal and when something like that would return. Less than 24 hours later JetBlue delivered!
-Just a week after the Vegas deal, JetBlue had transcontinental airfares with hotel packages for just $99
-In 2011 JetBlue Vacations offered $100 vacations with no minimum purchase.
-Don’t want to miss a glitch like one of these or $50 first class Delta tickets to Hawaii or LA, $440 business class AA tickets to Asia, 250 mile Delta flights, $148 Delta tickets from down under, $150 Delta Transatlantic fares, $250 AA Transatlantic fares, $187 Etihad tickets, $336 El Al tickets to Israel, $372 Delta tickets to Israel, $281 Air Canada tickets to Israel, $461 USAirways tickets to Israel, or $287 United tickets to Israel?
Join the 79,400+ people who follow @DansDeals on Twitter and you’ll get a tweet when a deal is posted on DansDeals.com! Click here to learn how to setup text message alerts (and choose which hours of the night not to bother you) and you’ll be the first to know about every deal!
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26 Comments On "JetBlue Honoring (Most) Free Vacation Reservations; A History Of Past Free Vacation Glitches"
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Ouch!! Funny Surprise birthday party situation there! Keep up with the awesome DEALS!
@TheBeast:
Was embarrassing having everyone wait for me like that, but at least most of the crowd got a nice vacation out of it.
But let’s just say Mimi hasn’t tried making another surprise party for me since then 😉
Hey Dan,
I was wondering what the deal is with missing one leg of the flight there seems to be many options about this, if I miss the first leg of my flight will it affect the return part.
@Matt:
Missing the first leg of a flight cancels out subsequent legs.
“Hey Dan we missed you at your B-day party…? Yeh I had a technical glitch sorry. But I’ll still honor the surprise. Lol. Dan, thanks for all you do! I’ve been a recipient of the work you do! Many times!
In the early days of dansdeals. I got a night in the Ritz Battery park for $10. Was with Expedia.ca
Party when you hit 80k twitter followers?
Hey Dan can I take the way back of the round trip ticket.
Hey Dan,
I booked a flight with this deal from fll to Cancun on February 6th to the 7th to get it for $0 and booked again on February 16th to the 17th from fll to Cancun if I don’t take the flight on the 16th to Cancun will I be able to take that return on the 17th back to fll or will it get canceled
@Mmn:
I think you just missed it.
You should have booked the second leg to be CUN-FLL, 17FEB outbound and then some later date on a return to CUN.
You can always not take the second leg and there are no consequences.
But when you miss the first leg of the RT, it will cancel out.
@dan
I just called up jetblue and asked them if I where to miss my way there if I can take my way back and they said that jetblues police is the the 2 flights don’t depend on each other. Is this true
@dan
I just called up jetblue and asked them if I where to miss my way there if I can take my way back and they said that jetblues police is the the 2 flights don’t depend on each other. Is this true
Any possibility JetBlue would let me change the dates/ times of flights?
Guys, it’s a glich. Stop asking the airline to accommodate you because you may have booked it incorrectly.
If you miss the first leg of your flight, maybe it will cancel the return, maybe it won’t. Would you want to risk that?
And no, they’re not going to change the date for free. What airline ever does (except SW)?
@Dan Says:
“Missing the first leg of a flight cancels out subsequent legs.”
If this is true why did Delta keep asking me where my partner was for the 4 subsequent legs? My partner skipped the trip completely. On the flight back, MAD-JFK, they walked up to me in the plane and asked where my partner was. Shouldn’t they know better?
@ABC:
It’s YMMV. But I’m not going to tell you it might work and listen to someone kvetch about being stuck paying full fare because I gave them false hope.
This offer provided a very cheap first night lodging in LV 2/28 where we begin our road trip to Grand Canyon and Cubs Spring Training (Mesa, AZ).
Fingers crossed something similar pops to provide a very cheap last night near PHX where we’re departing the Valley of the Sun @ 5:55am 3/6 (red-eye? pink-eye?)
Thanks for the deal – I booked 5 tickets for $190 from phl – fll.
3 of those tickets were for my kids – but put the wrong birthday in
(like you mentioned in your post)
will those not be honored?
How do I find out before I get to the airport?
@sg:
If you didn’t get a cancellation email you should be good to go.
@Dan:
Thank you!
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for choosing JetBlue Vacations!
We are contacting you in regards to possible duplicate bookings on your upcoming vacation package. There may be flights or hotel accommodations that were double booked or not useable while in your destination. We are in the process of auditing these bookings to make sure everything goes smoothly for you on your vacation.
Please contact us as soon as possible to ensure the correct bookings are cancelled and the accommodations you plan to use are left intact. Our Vacation Specialists are available 24 hours, every day at 1-800-JET-BLUE (538-2583) option 3. (If we have already reached out to you and made the necessary changes to your bookings, please disregard this notice.)
We are excited for you to experience your JetBlue Vacation, and look forward to hearing from you soon!
@leshmah101:
It’s fine, they’re just looking to get rid of the extra parts you don’t actually want.
so i should disclose to them the fact that i’m not planning on staying in the hotel
@Dan you just Jetblue my mind!
jetblue just called and basicly tryed to get me to cancel my resurvation by telling me that the hotel room type wasn’t avalible and i can cancel for free i told them i’ll be ok with whatever room. few minutes later my wife got the same call be aware !!
@Dan should i check in for the first flight if i only plan on using the hotel and not flying at all, or just show yup at the hotel?