Friday, October 28, 2005

I love this airline.

I have nearly a million miles accumulated on United. Once I hit it—in exactly 78,009 miles—I’ll achieve that lofty Million Mile Flyer status which, among other things, gives me permanent Premier Executive status, even if I never fly again. You would think that I’d book every possible flight on United. I could achieve that goal in short order. After all, I already have 69,740 miles on United this year.

Instead, I’ve dismissed United—and every other airline—whenever I have the opportunity to fly JetBlue. Right now, I have 11 500-mile upgrade certificates in my United Mileage Plus account. There are no upgrades on JetBlue; there’s no first class. But I’d rather sit in coach and be treated like a customer than sit in first class and be treated like an inconvenience or an opportunity to squeeze money out of me.

To begin with, the flight attendants are universally nice. Over at United, I’ve enountered a lot of surly flight attendants, including one who flat-out said, “This airline sucks.” A few months ago, flying home from Dulles, the flight was delayed five hours by bad weather. The gate agents made announcements frequently—even if there was no new information—just to keep us informed. They brought blankets, pillows, drinks and snacks destined for the plane up to the gate and distributed them to waiting passengers. And even though weather was the cause of the delay, they gave everybody on the flight a free one-way ticket to make up for the inconvenience.

Then there was last week. I finished my work in New York much earlier than I anticipated, so I headed to JFK and asked if there was an earlier flight home. I told the customer service agent I was only interested if I could avoid a middle seat. I expected to be charged at least $100 if the change was even possible. After all, I had bought the ticket early at a favorable fare, and even Southwest Airlines will charge you the difference between your discount fare and the full fare if you change to a different flight. Not JetBlue. I got a window seat on a sold-out flight nearly three hours earlier than my scheduled flight, and I wasn’t charged a dime.

It has been a long, long time since I’ve been enthusiastic about a travel provider, but JetBlue has earned my business and my respect. And I haven’t even mentioned that I was able to watch Game 4 of the World Series on the satellite station beamed to the monitor in the back of the seat in front of me.

JetBlue doesn’t fly everywhere, unfortunately, so I’m sure I’ll get that United million mile status one of these days. Hooray.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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