Wherever JetBlue goes, goodies follow
Big airlines fight back with free flights, bonus miles
By Chris McGinnis
CNN Headline News
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While the big airlines are engaged in a brutal fight with JetBlue, travelers end up winning -- with lower fares and a slew of extra benefits.
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(CNN) -- By now everyone knows that JetBlue is the darling of the travel business. People love to fly JetBlue and tell all their friends they should do the same; travel writers love to write about JetBlue because it is such a great story.
But other airlines don't feel the same way about JetBlue because it is forcing them to change -- or die.
Free worldwide ticket
When JetBlue enters a market, fares plummet and entrenched airlines panic. For example, JetBlue entered the Boston market this month with a bang, offering introductory fares as low as $69-$79 each way to cities in Florida and California. JetBlue has also announced that it is looking to add flights from New York's popular LaGuardia airport (in addition to its hub at Kennedy.)
You can bet that the big guys are not sitting idly by.
In addition to matching JetBlue's $79 fares, Delta and American are making a stunning offer to keep their New York and Boston customers away from JetBlue. Their bait? Buy just two round trips between Boston and New York to a handful of Florida or California cities, and you get a free roundtrip anywhere they fly -- in the world!
That means that two weekend trips on Delta or American between New York and Florida this winter could net you a free round trip from New York or Boston to Athens, or Buenos Aires or Tokyo. Not bad!
But keep in mind that Delta and American are going to make it difficult to actually use those award tickets. They are capacity controlled, which means that there will be few opportunities to use them to fly to desirable destinations. Plus, travel is forbidden on or around most major holidays.
Triple miles
Something similar happened when JetBlue announced that it would offer just three daily non-stop flights between Atlanta and Long Beach, California last summer. Delta fought back mightily.
What's interesting is that Delta didn't even serve Long Beach from its Atlanta hub. Nonetheless, it matched JetBlue's introductory one-way fares of just $99 from Atlanta to airports throughout the LA basin -- LAX, Ontario and Orange County. Not only that, but it offered triple miles to members of its SkyMiles program flying the routes -- that's almost 20,000 miles per round trip! (Keep in mind that it only takes 25,000 miles to earn a free round trip on Delta.)
In the end, Delta won its fight with JetBlue, which exited the market in December. But Delta had to give away the store to do so.
Wannabes
As a result of the enormous success of JetBlue, we now have Delta's SONG, which attempts to offer a similar mix of low fares and high hip factor on flights from northeastern cities to Florida. Soon, United will launch TED, a wannabe hip low-fare airline-within-an-airline in Denver.
Even low-fare giant Southwest Airlines has had to sit up and pay attention. For example, the ever-frugal carrier has never offered any in-flight entertainment other than the antics of its flight attendants. But now that it's competing with JetBlue, Southwest says that it is studying its entertainment options. AirTran, a similarly frugal low-fare carrier, just announced it would add XM satellite radio with over 100 channels of programming to seatbacks this summer.
None of this would have happened were it not for JetBlue.
Travelers benefit
So, while the big airlines are engaged in a brutal fight with JetBlue, travelers end up winning -- with lower fares and a slew of extra benefits. Stay tuned. JetBlue has a lot of growing to do.
