all US fees are included in the pass, but international tariffs are not. for an airline that most people think of as domestic, JB flies to a surprising number of countries -- most of them caribbean. to our eyes costa rica, colombia, bermuda and mexico all look tempting with associated fees of roughly $75 roundtrip each.
and that makes an interesting rub ...
if you fly to all four of those destinations it would be an additional $300 in fees. relative to the price of the pass that's a lot of money and chasing those countries has the danger of sliding into a "if it's friday, this must be mexico" state-of-mind.
it we decided to combat that specifically, and extend the time on foreign soil, at some level we'd be burning pass time that could otherwise be used elsewhere. (and while that's true at any US destination as well, somehow it seems "worse.")
on the other hand, you could think of the situation as "hey man, you can fly to colombia for $75." if you set aside the idea of the pass, it's hard to imagine how i'd ever turn something like that down.
we ended up splitting the difference.
costa rica is one of our favorite places in the world, but to our mind it demands more than just a few days ... really it needs at least a week (and shouldn't be polluted in the collective mind by other immediate travel needs). we crossed it off the list.
mexico is great, and pretty heavily underrated by americans as a tourist destination, but we border it in CA so it's a fairly easy jaunt any time. that's off too.
now colombia is really interesting. it's been dangerous for years and has only recently settled enough to be passable. even now it's still a bit dodgy. right this second the US state department still advises that you register as you enter the country and not travel on the ground from city-to-city. (not that that scares me -- it's just something to be aware of.) ... i've never been anywhere in south america and the timing is good. because of the restrictions, and the underlying possible problems, it's pretty easy to justify not wandering far from bogota, so the only-there-a-few-days trick is easy to rationalize. colombia's on.
i've been interested in bermuda ever since i first heard of the triangle -- even moreso now that i've lived in england. it's sort of a freak country in that it's the not-caribbean caribbean island. tiny. expensive. easy to cover in a fairly short period of time. it's exactly the kind of place i'd probably never go to otherwise. i love the idea of going there.
so here's the schedule (and our rationale):
SFO -> BOS (friends)
BOS -> PIT (architecture)
PIT -> OAK (baseball)
SJC -> BDA (bermuda)
BDA -> LAS (concert)
LAS -> FLL (everglades!)
FLL -> DEN (family)
DEN -> MSY (all things new orleans)
MSY -> BOG (colombia)
BOG -> SJC (home bittersweet home)
JB uses a hub and spoke system with emphasis on JFK, BOS, MCO and LGB. the legacy of having developed on the E coast still shows through in some places ... for example, DEN doesn't have any interaction with points W -- so if you want to go there you have to fly through either JFK or BOS (from those you can fly indirect to BGI, 3400 miles away from the origin; but not SLC, just over the mountains at 400 miles).
the flights are actually 15 independent legs, but i haven't listed the places that are
essentially transfer points. (note too that SJC, SFO and OAK are all within 40 miles of each other -- from a travel perspective, it's the absolute best thing about living in the bay area.) what's funny is even though i live in CA, i'm not making any flights through LGB.
before the days of "southwest airlines thinking" -- when individual legs would have been more expensive than roundtrips -- this would have been a hideously expensive trip ... especially when you add in little details like the open jaws involved.
as my accomplice requested the flights over the phone, i followed along on the JB website and tracked the dollar amounts of each ticket as we booked it. the pass details are very clear: flights need to be booked (or changed) at least three days ahead of time without penalty; otherwise, if you they have a seat, you can get it (no blackouts, no pass quotas).
including international fees, our tickets were a whopping $3160 each (on the equivalent of a $750 pass). the most expensive single leg was a red-eye from LAS to FLL on a sunday night -- by normal booking that ticket would have been $534.
my good friend, the robot, flatly stated the jetblue pass was no bargain -- he predicted that when all the travel was said and done, it would end up being the most expensive $600 i'd ever spent. the miscellaneous expenses aren't going to be trivial for my pocketbook, that's for sure, but i'll bet i end up doing the entire trip for less that the face value purchase price of the plane ticket. (in fact it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this month on the road ended up being cheaper than staying in my silicon valley apartment.)
before i quit it here, it's worth mentioning an interesting side-way that JB will make money off the AYCJ flyers -- something i didn't read in the media, anywhere. if a "normal" passenger were to jump in and book a seat on my LAS -> FLL flight now, they'd pay $574 [i "bought" the last $534 seat] ... without all the AYCJ people, i'm certain the price on that ticket would have been significantly less ... the final result: any pass people booking before paying customers will result in upping the dollar amount that the regular people will pay.
years ago i read somewhere that once an airline decides to fly a plane from point A to point B the cost to the airline to carry that passenger is relatively trivial (i seem to remember it being something like $2.50 -- that number might be off a bit, but not by much ... there's no way it's $20) because all the other pieces of doing the flight are already in place. there's little doubt in my mind that JB are making money on me -- even with the abusive flight schedule i have here.
i've traveled a lot in my life and yet i've never flown JB. it doesn't hit the flight corridor that i tend to frequent the most. so not only are these my first flights, it's also definitely true that the $600 i plunked down is money they wouldn't have seen in 2009 otherwise.
and JB wouldn't have gotten this 'blog (and associated twitter-stream chatter).
nor my incessant banter with my pals.
they also wouldn't have gotten my fat ass in a plane seat, thereby automatically forcing the next fat ass (who happens to have real money) to buy a more expensive seat.
they may not be making a lot off me, but i'm pretty sure they're making something. and that's pretty damn cool. because it's mnoney in the pocket for them (along with more than a little free publicity) and an unbelievably great deal for me. i already like jetblue and i haven't even ridden a plane away from the gate yet.
as an american i think you're not living your life properly if you're not using your passport at least once per year. i'm really looking forward to this trip.
in the oh-so-quaint words of ian anderson
the long road is a rainbow ...
and a pot of gold lies at the end.
so slip the chain and i'm off again ...
you'll find me everywhere ...
... 'cuz i'm a ...
rover!
