JetBlue Offers Unlimited Boston, Long Beach Travel Passes

JetBlue Offers Unlimited Boston, Long Beach Travel Passes July 29, 2011, 11:45 AM  By Jay Boehmer JetBlue Airways on Thursday began selling three-month, all-you-can-fly passes, with business travelers who use its Boston and Long Beach, Calif., hubs its main target. The passes, effective for travel from Aug. 22 through Nov. 22, start at $1,299 for unlimited flights to and from Long Beach and nine destinations, none of them east of Chicago, and go up to $1,999 for unlimited travel between Boston and "any JetBlue city," according to the carrier. The passes are available for sale through Aug. 31, or as long as supplies last, said vice president of sales and revenue management Dennis Corrigan. The offering calls to mind JetBlue's leisure-focused All You Can Jet pass, which in recent years has made a seasonal appearance to capture demand in the post-Labor Day trough. This year, however, All You Can Jet is out, and the so-called BluePass is in. The difference, Corrigan said, is the new offering's applicability to business traveler behaviors: Flights can be reserved up to 90 minutes before departure, compared with the predecessor program's three-day advance-purchase requirement; there are no change fees or cancellation fees; and the passes have a more forgiving no-show policy, as a user would have to miss two confirmed flights in a seven-day period before incurring a $100 charge. JetBlue also has elongated the unlimited travel window to three months from last year's one-month All You Can Jet offer. Accordingly, JetBlue has elongated the price: All You Can Jet passes started at $499 in 2010. Still, there is another key difference: All You Can Jet provided access to JetBlue's full network, while BluePass gives users a access to fewer origins and destinations. Depending on the package, Boston or Long Beach "would be the O or the D" in all travel redeemed by participants, said Corrigan. JetBlue already has found a corporate client for BluePass in Framingham, Mass.-based TJX Companies, parent of T.J. Maxx and other retailers, Corrigan confirmed. Still, he anticipates small and midsize organizations, as well as individual business travelers, to comprise the bulk of sales. To that end, the carrier has partnered with New England-based travel management companies Colpitts World Travel and Atlas Travel International. However, bookings must be made online through a dedicated reservations channel. "It's the same booking engine and site that powers CompanyBlue," said Corrigan, referring to JetBlue's corporate booking portal. Whether BluePass becomes a seasonal mainstay will depend on its success, Corrigan noted.