JB canceled my flight tomorrow out of Syracuse

[Lord Manhammer]

Update 7/19:

(1) The Spirit flight from Rochester was totally fine. I bought an exit-row seat and a checked bag and WiFi. The plane left on time and landed early. So early that the gate wasn't ready for the plane yet and we sat there for about 10 minutes waiting.

The seat was fine, the flight was uneventful, and I'd have no problem booking Spirit again.

The WiFi? Not possible to access, so I got a refund. That was not easy but I somehow gathered the 7,000 details that Spirit wanted in order to refund me the $11.99. Hey, it's $11.99 I can spend in 2 seconds at WDW!

(2) As of this minute, I have still not received any written confirmation from JetBlue about my refund, no refund is showing up in my JB cc account, and the last time I looked on the JB site, my itinerary is listed as the return flight and the price is the cost of the entire round-trip fare. No minus anything.

Supposedly JB will write to me within 24 hours of my lengthy phone call to them last night, and the clock's ticking. I'm having a hard time believing that they're going to respond after East Coast business hours, but I hope I'm wrong. And I don't care if they ever write to me, just give me my money back!

But here I am at WDW at a beautiful pool-view room at AKL. Hurrah!

Credit card refunds can take a few days to post and that's not counting the bureaucracy that can occur on JetBlue's end. I am holding out hope for your refund. I've never had a bad experience with JetBlue so I hope that they will stand by their word. Glad the Spirit flight worked out. I've honestly never flown them as I have the Delta, American, and United credit cards so I am loyal to them based on price and route. I stayed at AKL in December 2021 and it's a really nice resort. I hope that you enjoy yourself and can put this debacle behind you.

 

[1979figment]

OK. How bad is Spirit?

I had booked a sport flight for the first time in June. They canceled my 5:45 flight out of Baltimore at 11:00 the night before. Said it was due to tsa cancellation due to bad weather. Luckily i heard my phone beep with the message. They wanted to put my on a flight around same time to have a layover in Texas then to Mco a 12 hour trip or fly me out the following day. I had non refundable dinner reservations booked for the day. They gave me a refund and I rebooked on southwest for a 6 am flight had to fly to Tampa rent a car and drive to Disney but made it by noon. Luckily it was just me and my son and not the other 4 kids and my wife. It cost me an extra 600 dollars to do that without losing the money on dinner and Dvc points. I would never chance it and try spirt to save a few bucks.

 

[Miffy]

I had booked a sport flight for the first time in June. They canceled my 5:45 flight out of Baltimore at 11:00 the night before. Said it was due to tsa cancellation due to bad weather. Luckily i heard my phone beep with the message. They wanted to put my on a flight around same time to have a layover in Texas then to Mco a 12 hour trip or fly me out the following day. I had non refundable dinner reservations booked for the day. They gave me a refund and I rebooked on southwest for a 6 am flight had to fly to Tampa rent a car and drive to Disney but made it by noon. Luckily it was just me and my son and not the other 4 kids and my wife. It cost me an extra 600 dollars to do that without losing the money on dinner and Dvc points. I would never chance it and try spirt to save a few bucks.

Well, JetBlue just did a similar thing to me, so I sympathize completely. I am not yet giving up on JB, but they have to do better.

 

[krissyh]

Well, Buffalo is quite far away from where I am. Four or five hours' drive, I think.

Never assume! I guess I thought you were coming from Syracuse. At least you got there but I’m sorry that happened to you. I’ve given up on JB after too many problems and never finding decent fares.
Have fun and good luck coming home.

 

[Rogue1677x]

Update 7/19:

(1) The Spirit flight from Rochester was totally fine. I bought an exit-row seat and a checked bag and WiFi. The plane left on time and landed early. So early that the gate wasn't ready for the plane yet and we sat there for about 10 minutes waiting.

The seat was fine, the flight was uneventful, and I'd have no problem booking Spirit again.

The WiFi? Not possible to access, so I got a refund. That was not easy but I somehow gathered the 7,000 details that Spirit wanted in order to refund me the $11.99. Hey, it's $11.99 I can spend in 2 seconds at WDW!

(2) As of this minute, I have still not received any written confirmation from JetBlue about my refund, no refund is showing up in my JB cc account, and the last time I looked on the JB site, my itinerary is listed as the return flight and the price is the cost of the entire round-trip fare. No minus anything.

Supposedly JB will write to me within 24 hours of my lengthy phone call to them last night, and the clock's ticking. I'm having a hard time believing that they're going to respond after East Coast business hours, but I hope I'm wrong. And I don't care if they ever write to me, just give me my money back!

But here I am at WDW at a beautiful pool-view room at AKL. Hurrah!

When JetBlue made a schedule change and forgot to actually issue the tickets for the new flights for 2 of the 3 people in my travel party, I found contacting them through Twitter directly worked faster. Hopefully you get your refund soon!

 

[focusondisney]

Well, Buffalo is quite far away from where I am. Four or five hours' drive, I think.

Are you in Syracuse? Buffalo is only 2.5 hours from Syracuse. A little over an hour from Rochester. Just for future reference.

 

[sam_gordon]

I had booked a sport flight for the first time in June. They canceled my 5:45 flight out of Baltimore at 11:00 the night before. Said it was due to tsa cancellation due to bad weather. Luckily i heard my phone beep with the message. They wanted to put my on a flight around same time to have a layover in Texas then to Mco a 12 hour trip or fly me out the following day. I had non refundable dinner reservations booked for the day. They gave me a refund and I rebooked on southwest for a 6 am flight had to fly to Tampa rent a car and drive to Disney but made it by noon. Luckily it was just me and my son and not the other 4 kids and my wife. It cost me an extra 600 dollars to do that without losing the money on dinner and Dvc points. I would never chance it and try spirt to save a few bucks.

You should never book a non refundable anything the day you're flying in, regardless of the airline. Anything can happen with any airline.

 

[Miffy]

Are you in Syracuse? Buffalo is only 2.5 hours from Syracuse. A little over an hour from Rochester. Just for future reference.

Actually, I just checked. Buffalo is 2.5 hours from home. I thought it was further. Nevertheless, my DH, who doesn't come to WDW with me, would have to drive 5 hours round trip to take me to the airport. Syracuse is only 1.5 hours (3 hours round trip).

Even Rochester was a stretch. Yesterday my plane landed at MCO before he got home!

ETA: Albany is 3 hours away.

 

[DVC-Don]

My daughter had that same flight changed from a non-stop Syracuse to Orlando to a connection in Boston last month.

 

[Miffy]

My daughter had that same flight changed from a non-stop Syracuse to Orlando to a connection in Boston last month.

Thanks for posting this. Perhaps this early-morning flight from SYR doesn't really work.

Was your daughter's flight with the Boston connection scheduled on the same day as her original flight? And did she take it?

I'm not into flying such a short distance with a connection, but if JB had rescheduled me for the Boston-connection flight the same day (yesterday) as my original reservation, I might've taken it, just to avoid the hassle that I ended up going through.

 

[ClapYourHands]

I think some of the hate against Spirit is subjective. For years I was told to avoid RyanAir and was told they are the Spirit of Europe. Well, I took an 80$ RT flight from Krakow to Prague last October on them and my experience was like yours. No problems whatsoever. It was of course no frills but what do you want for 80$. I'd fly them again in a heartbeat.

Yeah, the thing about the ultra low cost carriers is that when they are fine they are fine. When there’s a problem, it’s a real headache. But these days, it seems like it’s a headache no matter which airline you fly on. It’s just more of a headache with the ULCCs

 

[Disturbia]

Thanks for posting this. Perhaps this early-morning flight from SYR doesn't really work.

Was your daughter's flight with the Boston connection scheduled on the same day as her original flight? And did she take it?

I'm not into flying such a short distance with a connection, but if JB had rescheduled me for the Boston-connection flight the same day (yesterday) as my original reservation, I might've taken it, just to avoid the hassle that I ended up going through.

If you didn’t check into your original flight, I believe they sell the seat and the connecting flight to a passenger who was waitlisted. I remember reading about a seat that was paid for for a sibling but that person didn’t check in. There was a lap child with the same family but they couldn’t use that seat (they brought a car seat assuming they could use the extra seat) because it was immediately given to someone else.

Flying spirit: we’ve had our double stroller damaged (wheel completely broken; was too late at night and flight delayed by several hours) with them; flight cancelled less than 24 hours before multiple times post pandemic. American Airlines did the same and tried to split our family (we have platinum status with them). Weather meant all flights out of ORD were cancelled last April and we drove 20+ hrs excluding hotel car rental groceries, new car seats (we had to drive to Walmart without any).

We still fly with spirit if necessary and 80% of the time have no issues.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/southwest-cancelled-our-flight-with-less-than-12-hours-😡.3878174/

 

[Miffy]

If you didn’t check into your original flight, I believe they sell the seat and the connecting flight to a passenger who was waitlisted. I remember reading about a seat that was paid for for a sibling but that person didn’t check in. There was a lap child with the same family but they couldn’t use that seat (they brought a car seat assuming they could use the extra seat) because it was immediately given to someone else.

Flying spirit: we’ve had our double stroller damaged (wheel completely broken; was too late at night and flight delayed by several hours) with them; flight cancelled less than 24 hours before multiple times post pandemic. American Airlines did the same and tried to split our family (we have platinum status with them). Weather meant all flights out of ORD were cancelled last April and we drove 20+ hrs excluding hotel car rental groceries, new car seats (we had to drive to Walmart without any).

We still fly with spirit if necessary and 80% of the time have no issues.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/southwest-cancelled-our-flight-with-less-than-12-hours-😡.3878174/

I guess I'm confused, because I don't understand how your first paragraph relates to what happened to me. I had checked into my flight and printed my boarding pass. Then, hours later, the flight was canceled and they put me on a flight the following day, one with a connection, one that took 7.5 hours instead of the 2.5 hours the nonstop flight takes, all without consulting me. That's when I called and canceled the rescheduled-by-them outbound flight.

BTW, I am getting the refund for my outbound flight, the one that was canceled and that I refused their alternative for. I got an email from JetBlue today showing the refund amount. I'm still flying back from MCO with JB . . . assuming they don't cancel that flight! If they do, my use of JB is perhaps at an end.

I gather that a lot of airlines are doing this cancellation thing. It's impacted many people. I've had my flights rescheduled before and a flight in March was delayed 4 hours, but at least it happened and I got to MCO on the day I was scheduled to.

ETA: The thing that makes me wary of JetBlue now is that both times recently--the 4-hours-late-for-departure flight and the canceled flight--I was told of the change on very very short notice.

 

[Disturbia]

I guess I'm confused, because I don't understand how your first paragraph relates to what happened to me. I had checked into my flight and printed my boarding pass. Then, hours later, the flight was canceled and they put me on a flight the following day, one with a connection, one that took 7.5 hours instead of the 2.5 hours the nonstop flight takes, all without consulting me. That's when I called and canceled the rescheduled-by-them outbound flight.

BTW, I am getting the refund for my outbound flight, the one that was canceled and that I refused their alternative for. I got an email from JetBlue today showing the refund amount. I'm still flying back from MCO with JB . . . assuming they don't cancel that flight! If they do, my use of JB is perhaps at an end.

I gather that a lot of airlines are doing this cancellation thing. It's impacted many people. I've had my flights rescheduled before and a flight in March was delayed 4 hours, but at least it happened and I got to MCO on the day I was scheduled to.

ETA: The thing that makes me wary of JetBlue now is that both times recently--the 4-hours-late-for-departure flight and the canceled flight--I was told of the change on very very short notice.

I thought someone suggested catching the connecting flight, so I misunderstood. In any case, I’m glad you were able to finally make your destination despite the fiasco.

Insurance is a must for us. We did take insurance for the cruise and book flights separately to WDW. We also book an earlier flight and Epcot (no ADRs) on check in day.

 

[LoveDaisy]

OP I’m sorry it was such a hassle but I’m glad you were able to make it to Disney. I hope your flight home is uneventful. They are the only airline I won’t fly with, due to a horrible experience but that was years ago so hopefully they have improved.

 

[Mikey15]

I place a strong preference on direct flights when I fly too, but I guess one thing it potentially opens us up to are unexpected/ last-minute maintenance needs that mean having to connect somewhere, if they don’t just have a “spare plane” (and why would they in this busy flight environment) to deploy to that route.

OP, glad you were able to scramble to Rochester and that it worked out mostly okay. My friends booked SYR MCO on JB for the fall in the spring, and later got an inconvenient “flight time has been changed” from the typical early morning it’s been anytime I’ve flown it to a late evening flight! I don’t know if they’ve figured out whether they go with connecting flight or just fly the night before instead, but watch things change again before November rolls around…

 

[Miffy]

I place a strong preference on direct flights when I fly too, but I guess one thing it potentially opens us up to are unexpected/ last-minute maintenance needs that mean having to connect somewhere, if they don’t just have a “spare plane” (and why would they in this busy flight environment) to deploy to that route.

OP, glad you were able to scramble to Rochester and that it worked out mostly okay. My friends booked SYR MCO on JB for the fall in the spring, and later got an inconvenient “flight time has been changed” from the typical early morning it’s been anytime I’ve flown it to a late evening flight! I don’t know if they’ve figured out whether they go with connecting flight or just fly the night before instead, but watch things change again before November rolls around…

JetBlue has changed the departure time of several outbound flights from Syracuse since I started flying out of that airport. Usually from a morning flight to a late night flight. It's happened to me several times. And that's a whole day at WDW lost. Not a good thing.

Postscript on my experience: I got an email from JetBlue this morning, confirming (ha!) that the connecting flight from Boston to MCO, the flight that they'd rebooked me on after cancelling the original flight ... Well, the Boston flight was cancelled! So I'm doubly happy I turned down the rebooking.

 

[ClapYourHands]

ETA: The thing that makes me wary of JetBlue now is that both times recently--the 4-hours-late-for-departure flight and the canceled flight--I was told of the change on very very short notice.

Recently flew Frontier, and my flight back from MCO was delayed. I got timely notices that allowed me to spend more time at Disney Springs. It ended up being about 1.5 hours late after being pushed back twice, but I got both notifications. It was nice to be able to spend that time doing enjoyable things rather than waiting in MCO. Notifications came around 3:30 and 5:30, for a flight originally scheduled for 9:58pm. I have no doubt I would have been extremely inconvenienced if the flight were cancelled because they just don’t have enough flights to absorb all the passengers in a timely way, but their communication about the delay was spot on.

I feel like communication is very valuable to customers, and costs the airline very little, so it should be a priority.

 

[Miffy]

Recently flew Frontier, and my flight back from MCO was delayed. I got timely notices that allowed me to spend more time at Disney Springs. It ended up being about 1.5 hours late after being pushed back twice, but I got both notifications. It was nice to be able to spend that time doing enjoyable things rather than waiting in MCO. Notifications came around 3:30 and 5:30, for a flight originally scheduled for 9:58pm. I have no doubt I would have been extremely inconvenienced if the flight were cancelled because they just don’t have enough flights to absorb all the passengers in a timely way, but their communication about the delay was spot on.

I feel like communication is very valuable to customers, and costs the airline very little, so it should be a priority.

JetBlue told me 12 hours in advance of my original flight's departure time that the flight was cancelled and that I was booked on a flight the day after my original flight. Do you consider that good communication?

 

[ClapYourHands]

JetBlue told me 12 hours in advance of my original flight's departure time that the flight was cancelled and that I was booked on a flight the day after my original flight. Do you consider that good communication?

I guess it depends on when they knew (or could reasonably be expected to know) they were cancelling. Sometimes they know early, and sometimes they know late. I spent 9 hours at SFO in April after boarding, then deplaning, then being delayed multiple times, then being cancelled. Then waiting for the next flight. That was on AA, and fortunately DH has status with them so we could wait in the lounge. But we did lose our original seats, and if we’d known we’d end up on the late flight anyway, we’d have spent the day elsewhere. In comparison, 12 hours seems like a lot of advance notice.