JetBlue made an unannounced policy change yesterday when they shortened the timeframe you’ll have to use travel credits created by cancelled trips. Previously, during the pandemic, JetBlue had made travel credits from changed or cancelled trips valid for one year from the date of change/cancellation. Now, those credits will be valid for one year from the date of booking. If you book travel far in advance, this is certainly not a customer-friendly move.
As noted at the top, during the pandemic, JetBlue made “travel bank” credits from cancelled travel valid for a year from the date of change or cancellation. For instance, if you booked a ticket on 3/15/23 for travel on 2/1/24 and you cancelled the day before the flight (on 1/31/24), you would receive a credit valid for a year from the date of cancellation (the credit would be valid until 1/31/25). That would give you plenty of time to use your banked credit and it was a customer-friendly move in an era where people were frequently forced to cancel travel at the last minute due to COVID.
Without any prior notice, JetBlue has changed that policy and the credit will now be valid for one year from the date of original booking. In other words, in the example scenario above, your travel credit would only be valid until 3/15/25 (or about 6 weeks from the date of cancellation).
That obviously gives you far less flexibility than the policy of the past couple of years since you’ll potentially have far less time to use credits from cancellations. Of course, you’ll still be able to use those credits to book travel all the way out through the end of the JetBlue schedule, but you’ll need to decide on what you’ll book by a year from the date of original booking.
While the change is an unfortunate one, in my opinion the worst part of this is that, as pointed out by The Points Guy, the change came without notice and on a day when JetBlue had other big announcements that were sure to draw the most attention. If you weren’t paying close attention, you’d easily miss this change.
If you’re a frequent JetBlue traveler, be aware that booking travel far in advance comes with a bit more risk these days since you’ll have a shorter rebooking window. That may not be a problem if you fly often enough to easily use the credit before expiration, but it’s worth being aware of the policy before you book end-of-schedule travel.
H/T: TPG
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