JetBlue modifies change fees... in a logical way

Great elite perk. Wish the legacies started to think more out of the box and rethink the change penalties.

What? For fares up to $100 the change fee is a minimum of 75%, and up? For a fare of $100, the fee might well be 100% of the cost of the ticket? In which case, I would never bother to inform them I couldn't take the flight. I would even check in online if I could, and hope to force them to fly with that seat empty, rather than let them take all of my money and then sell the seat again, at a potentially even higher last minute fare.

Kudos? Just reading about this onerous policy makes me want to never, ever, spend a single dollar with them.

A fee of $75 for even the lowest fare when you give them over 60 days notice? That's just obscene. I wonder if they realize how many of us refuse to take discretionary domestic flights with anyone other than SW because of the draconian penalties they and the other non-SW airlines impose?

There are easily 3 or 4 flights a year I don't take because they are only affordable if booked so far in advance I can't be sure I can go on those dates. As a leisure traveler, if I can't get there on SW, I just skip the domestic long weekend trips, and save that money to spend in Europe on a month long trip, using "free" award flights from cc sign up bonuses instead.

The rant is over now, it's safe to come back out. 😀

They are also leaving money on the table in that they aren't forcing customers who need the flexibility and who can afford it to buy more expensive fares. No way the legacies match this.

I'm trying to understand this pricing as well. So why would I ever cancel a fare where the fee is greater than the ticket price?

Am I missing something?

A better method would be to refund 75% of the ticket fare if cancelled 60 days prior to the date and maybe only 50% prior to the date of travel.

Thanks.

What's particularly interesting is that JetBlue is waiving fees for Mosaic members AND others on the same itinerary. Alaska only waives the fee for the MVP Gold member.

Hi Lucky,
Quick question, which is more a general question regarding cancellations.

For a lot of domestic fares or short haul flights in europe the taxes and fees are higher than the actually fare. Is there a way to recoup the taxes you paid for your flight if you never actually take the flight. For instance for some of these cases it might make sense to just try to get your taxes back rather than pay a cancellation or change fee. Let me know if my question doesn't make sense. Thanks

@ jason h -- Wish there were, though I don't believe that's refundable either without paying the fee.

Robert, I think what B6 is basically saying is "Don't bother us with changing cheap tickets." It's not too different from Long Island Railroad where there's a $10 fee to have a ticket refunded, but lots of their tickets are around $10.

"change fees in no way reflect the cost of providing that service"

Well, come on, that's not quite true. Airlines make a lot of money from charging for flexibility. If you need the flexibility to change your flight, and there were no change penalty for cheap fares, what would prevent you from buying a cheap fare far in advance and then changing it if you need to? If there were no change fees, airlines would sell many fewer expensive flexible fares, which means that the price of all other fares would have to be higher.

So, while change fees don't appear to "reflect the cost of the service," in fact they keep the price of advance-purchase inflexible fares low. I'd say this means that change fees are priced rationally (even though I dislike them as much as anyone).