Greetings! I was supposed to be on a plane right now to Connecticut to see family but I postponed since COVID is surging there. However, I did learn a few things from this experience:
1. Airfares between Los Angeles and New York are crazy expensive. I’m talking three to five times what they were a few months ago.
2. I have a JetBlue credit that is expiring next month. My ticket cost $35 more than what my credit was, so I was hoping that once I canceled my ticket, it would reset the whole credit. That wasn’t the case. Instead, my original credit is still expiring on the original date but I have a year to use the extra $35.
3. Even if I wanted to fly in Mint (JetBlue’s First Class) last minute, there were no seats available to New York City unless I was willing to make a stop in BOS or SFO.
4. Airfares are cheaper and planes aren’t as full out of Boston. I was going to fly back to L.A. from Boston and last-minute coach tickets on American (AA) were only $320 and business and first class were wide open (they fly the A321T on this route). So much so that they had systemwide upgrades available for Executive Platinum members.
5. Just before I clicked the purchase button for my BOS-LAX ticket, AA tried to entice me to upgrade to Business Class for $752. It was a hard no from me. But one minute after I purchased the ticket, I went into my reservation and noticed that American had offered me that same lie-flat, Business Class seat for $291 (see screenshot below).
It was enticing but since I have Executive Platinum status, where upgrades are free if space is available, I decided to roll the dice. I’m glad I didn’t take the bait because 43 minutes later (four days before departure), I received an email stating that my upgrade had cleared. See screenshot below:
So, although I didn’t make the trip to the east coast this weekend, I learned some tips and interesting things about airline algorithms.
I have to wonder about the parents of those two little ones in the cover shot:
Even if you CAN afford premium seats for your whole family, who wastes the experience on kids who are too young to recall it a couple of years later?? Spend that dough-rey-mi on yo’self…an economy seat IS pretty much a lie-flat to a toddler…
Couple of years? Couple of months. That’s what you do when you’re trying to protect your kids from COVID. FYI I used my miles and it was cheaper than coach.
Re: “5 Things I Learned from Canceling my Trip to the East Coast, Including How to Save $460 on American Airlines Upgrade” (5/1/2022)
“…I did learn 5 things from this experience, including how to save a significant amount of money on an American Airlines upgrade,”
Hi, John….I’m confused, and wish I wasn’t. To make it easier for my inexperienced flight booking skills, in an easy-to-read bullet-point format, what are the specific “5 things?”
In advance, thank you very much.
Hi! I numbered and bolded the five points so I hope that helps.
Good answer Johnny.
PS…I’ve also been noticing the same upgrade offers. I got an offer from AA for $72. I too rolled the dice and got my upgrade for free to Flagship Business to Boston. Let’s see what happens on the Jet Blue code share this week to Boston!
YES. It was the “*” in the offer for a discounted business fare ticket. The fine print states the discount is for the lowest fare segment and when you explore you have to add up all the segments for the final business fare price for round trip.
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