I’ve spent the past couple of days picking up the first few airports as my family chases the 25 airports to complete the JetBlue 25 for 25 promotion. Part of our early plans involved very cheap same-day turns on Caribbean routes from San Juan to St. Thomas and St. Croix. After barely making it in St. Thomas, we cancelled the same-day turn in St. Croix, realizing that it just wasn’t possible.
Flights between San Juan and the US Virgin Islands are among the cheapest in the JetBlue network
Along the planning process for our JetBlue travels, I stumbled on the fact that JetBlue operates some Caribbean routes out of San Juan with very attractive pricing.
Blue fares between San Juan and the US Virgin Islands are among the cheapest I’ve seen, with San Juan to St. Thomas and St. Croix as inexpensive as about $75 one-way from San Juan. It sometimes costs a bit more in the opposite direction, but given the very short distances/flights (San Juan to St. Thomas involves a flight time of about 16 minutes!), these look like a great way to pick up several airports in a very short period of time.
Keep in mind though that JetBlue sells tickets both for JetBlue-operated flights and Cape Air-operated flights between the islands. However, the Cape Air flights do not count for 25 for 25. There is just one JetBlue-operated flight in and out St. Thomas and St. Croix each day. The same plane arrives and turns around to go back to San Juan.
Since it’s the same plane, these flights look like the perfect opportunity to do a same-day turn (in other words, to fly to the destination — in this case, St. Thomas or St. Croix — and turn back around to fly back (to San Juan). Since Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are both US territory, I assumed this would work like any domestic flight. I envisioned getting off the plane at the gate and just standing there for a few minutes until boarding began to get on the flight back to San Juan.
However, I probably should have been tipped off that a same-day turn isn’t a good idea when JetBlue told me that I couldn’t buy it . . . .
As you can see above, when you try to buy a “round trip” ticket, JetBlue says that the flights overlap. Google flights makes it look like this round trip can be purchased.
I thought maybe the system was just programmed to disallow less than an hour between directions because in most such situations, any delay would make the return impossible to make. However, in this case, I figured that there was no real cause for concern since the flights are operated by the same plane — if the outbound were delayed, the return would be as well. I went ahead and booked the legs separately. That’s when I learned why they didn’t allow this….
The US Virgin Islands are in a separate customs area
When we arrived in St. Thomas, we disembarked down a staircase on the tarmac. To my surprise, the only entry point to the terminal was to baggage claim. All passengers need to exit the secure area of the airport.
That came as a surprise to me — as did the fact that, to get to the gate area once again, we had to pass through not only airport security but US Customs also. I later learned that is because that while the US Virgin Islands are part of US territory, they are not part of the customs territory of the United States. All travelers pass through US customs on the way out of the Virgin Islands.
Still, as we had about an hour between arrival and departure, I figured that we would probably be OK. We got through the customs line relatively quickly and the security line didn’t look unmanageable. However, it moved slowly. As the minutes passed, my wife’s anxiety just about reached a boiling point. Our flight was already boarding by the time we got to the TSA officer and the line was moving very slowly to get to the scanners.
Thankfully, we made the flight — getting on eight or nine minutes before the boarding door was scheduled to close. As it turned out, the door didn’t quite close on time as the flight waited for a few more stragglers, so we got on with time to spare, but not nearly as much time to spare as my better half would have preferred.
The next day, we had the same-day turn booked to St. Croix. However, I cancelled it when I learned that the same situation would repeat, but with even less time between flights. The St. Croix flight was scheduled to land 12 minutes before boarding would begin for the flight to San Juan. The Internet suggests that the security line at St. Croix moves particularly slowly in the afternoon. I didn’t think it likely that we’d arrive, get out of the secure area, and make it all the way back in time to board the flight to San Juan.
We didn’t have the time to change our return to San Juan to the next day, so we abandoned plans and simply flew home from San Juan.
I’ll note that it might be a little faster if you have TSA PreCheck (we don’t, but now I wish we did!). Still, I would highly recommend planning an overnight on both islands if you plan to pick them up en route to the 25 for 25 milestones. St. Thomas has a few Wyndham properties and a Marriott along with a Hampton by Hilton scheduled to open in the coming months. St. Croix has a Marriott that can sometimes be bookable with a Marriott 35K certificate. It’s easy enough to plan an overnight — save yourself the stress and plan a night between flights.
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Isn’t there a DC airport that has Global Entry sign-ups on departure? surely you could route through one of those airports to do the sign up
With all the CC Nick +family have, it’s amazing that they don’t have pre-check. Does that mean they are not using Global Entry either? Global Entry includes pre-check. I’m stunned.
I do what I can to maximize my points but I rarely can be more flexible than a day or two with my traveling. I’m also curious if there are any websites out there that offer the discount business class seats for like $1000 each way to Europe or something like that. I’ve seen ratepunk and sky Lux advertised and I wondered how they work.
Never heard of anyone regretting they got TSA precheck.
Nick, love the amazing content you post and so sorry to feel the urge to re-iterate the whole thing about GE/TSA precheck. I just wanted to add a slightly different thought based on a reply of yours earlier regarding driving 70 miles to a Staples for TSA pre-check. I assume getting global entry (which comes with TSA precheck) would be a lot easier, even if you don’t care for the global entry itself. Many airports participate in enrollment on arrival, so once conditionally approved (which admittedly can sometimes take a few months and may not benefit your family for this challenge) you simply make the global entry line when going through customs on your next international trip and tell them you are doing the EoA interview. They ask you a question or two, take a picture, and then you’re done and now have both TSA precheck and global entry. And you didn’t have to do anything extra except submit an online application (assuming your credit card reimburses the cost) and wait for the next trip you were already taking. I understand you may see the benefit as not being that high, but also the cost/effort is close to zero (when we have credit cards that cover the monetary cost)!
I fly a fair amount and also don’t have pre-check. Often have priority due to status or class of service and, when I don’t, rarely looks like I’d save more than five minutes.
How you fly so much, but neglected to get Precheck long ago is mind-boggling…
You are the definition of intrepid. great reporting!
I had one of these planned, so thanks for the heads up.
i know its been said already but cant stress enough how funny it is that the guy who optimizes 1000 things per year and manages dozens of cards and all these credits cant be bothered to get precheck. we all have our blindspots! just find it hilarious
Still cant believe it. LOL
Same, cracks me up every time. I gotta believe it’s stubbornness at this point!
Some other maybe useful info.
The key to the security line is the porters. I don’t know how they’d work if you are traveling light but sailing down there we carry multiple large bags and used the porters. They skip past most of the CBP lines and get you right to the desk.
On the other hand JetBlue flying an A320ceo into that airport is asking for trouble. You’ll notice a surprising number of 757s and 320neos from other carriers. The required climb performance means they kick people (and luggage) off of the plane when the wind exceeds something like 10kts.
What happens if you book on Jetblue operated flight and then they cancel at last minute all Jetblue operated flight and put you on cape air? Would we get credit or how to force a credit? It happened to us 2 weeks ago and not sure how to find out if will get credit? When they put us on Cape Air we asked them to put Jetblue number but no way to know or verify? This was a flight from BOS to MVY
Actually this could happen many times for this promotion so how to track our progress?
I don’t know of any way to track your progress, but I would probably just assume you do not get credit for the Cape Air flight in that scenario and I’d be building in another destination. I guess the other way to “know” is that once you finish 15, you’ll get 150K at some point. If you wait a while after #15, I guess you might know that you got the points and you’re good to go — though I’m not sure how long you’d have to wait to hit #16 to know for sure that it didn’t count. I’d just be booking an additional destination in that case I think.
So I saw one flight you can book is FLL- SJU – connecting through MDE – if I booked this flight do I have to go through customs in Colonbia or can I just hang in terminal ???
Edit: never mind. I don’t know the answer.
Never mind that, I think cabotage only
applies if it’s a foreign carrier. Sorry, momentarily forgot that key detail.
Gotcha – I am going to call
jetblue tomorrow and ask – on many days that is the first connecting flight JetBlue shows after all direct flights
Tell your wife that MY wife put off doing TSA pre-check for a long time (the annoyance of having to go to a building the 1st time). But, she did it in March and now she says it’s TOTALLY worth it! Especially with kids or any medication, etc.
I know a lot of us think “well, if I do that, I might as well go for global entry” but since you probably have 12 cards that offer both, don’t hesitate to take the halfway step and just get the pre-check.
Cheers!
I have Global Entry which gives me TSA pre-check and I fly in and out of St. Thomas regularly. As long as I am not checking a bag and have already checked in online, the longest it has ever taken me to get through customs and security and to my gate has been about 15 minutes. Average time is 8-10 minutes. Having seen what those lines can look like (backed up completely out to the sidewalk out front) and knowing that “Island time” is a real thing, I would never want to fly through there without it!
If I remember correctly you need your Global Entry ID card at STT, correct? Without the card GE is useless.
I always carry mine and have it out ready so I don’t know for sure but I always assume they will ask for it. I don’t trust the system enough to not carry it with me lol.
I was going to ask how long it would take with Global Entry. Sounds like with GE and carry on only, the turn is fairly doable if slightly stressful