JetBlue flash sale drops many routes below $100 round trip
JetBlue has launched a 48-hour flash sale that has dropped fares below $100 round trip on many of the carrier's routes across the nation.
The two-day sale ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday (Jan. 11) and is good for travel from Jan. 18 through March 8. Travel from Feb. 17 through Feb. 26 is blacked out. Among the other fine print: Sale fares on most routes are not available on Fridays and Sundays. Only nonstop itineraries are included in the sale pricing.
More fine print: The sale fares fall under JetBlue’s “Blue” fare type, which does not include free checked baggage as part of the purchase price. The fare-sale offer is also subject to capacity controls, meaning the special fares could sell out on individual flights. A cursory check as of early Monday afternoon showed decent availability of the advertised fares.
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It’s a common practice among airlines to roll out fare sales to help fill empty seats during low-demand periods. The period from early January into earlier March is one of the slowest, with demand for flights dropping after the big winter holidays. Demand typically remains lukewarm until before picking up again ahead of the traditional “spring break” window in March.
But while fare sales have long been employed by carriers during such windows, flash sales like JetBlue’s two-day event have become increasingly common as the industry tries to exploit online sales channels. JetBlue rolls out several such sales a year. One of its latest came just in November, when it sold seats for many of the same lower-demand winter dates.
But it's perhaps Southwest that has become the best-known for the tactic. The Dallas-based carrier drops prices to as low as $49 each way in extraordinarily broad 72-hour sales that typically rolls out twice a year. One of those sales in June 2015 received so much interest that the carier was forced to extend it by a day after bargain-seekers crashed its website.
JetBlue’s current two-day sale covers a variety of routes, with one-way fares listed as low as $34 each way.
Bargain-hunters seeking deals on JetBlue will find most of the airline’s best deals are to or from its hubs and focus cities, which include New York JFK, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Long Beach, Calif.
The cheapest fares are generally on the shortest routes, but there are exceptions. Among those is the $89 each-way fare on the 1,820-mile route between Albuquerque and New York JFK. Conversely, the short 300-mile route between New York JFK and Buffalo cost almost as much at $79 each way. Ditto for the 280-mile route between Boston and Philadelphia, which was listed at $89 each way.
Many international routes also are included, such as JetBlue's $79 one-way fare on the 1,281-mile route between Orlando and Mexico City or the $124 one-way fare between Fort Lauderdale and Bogota, Colombia.
The sale appears to top out at $199 each way on domestic routes (San Diego-New York JFK) and at $224 each way overall (Boston-Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
Scroll down for a partial list of routes with fares of $74 or less each way in JetBlue’s sale. Or check out the full list of routes included in JetBlue’s sale on the carrier’s website.
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$34 each way
Boston-Richmond, Va.; Las Vegas-Long Beach; Buffalo-Boston.
$39 each way
Reno-Long Beach; Washington Dulles-Boston; Oakland-Long Beach; San Francisco-Long Beach.
$40 each way
Fort Lauderdale-Turks & Caicos
$44 each way
Newark Liberty-Boston; Sacramento-Long Beach; Philadelphia-Boston.
$49 each way
New York JFK-Charleston, S.C.; Pittsburgh-Fort Lauderdale; San Francisco-Las Vegas; Washington Reagan National-Hartford, Conn.; Boston-Washington Reagan National; Nashville-Boston.
$50 each way
Orlando-Nassau, Bahamas; Fort Lauderdale-Nassau, Bahamas.
$54 each way
New York JFK-Raleigh/Durham; Jacksonville, Fla.-Fort Lauderdale; Nashville-Fort Lauderdale; West Palm Beach-Washington Reagan National.
$59 each way
New York JFK-Bermuda; Chicago O’Hare-Fort Lauderale; Boston-New York LaGuardia; Boston-Cleveland.
$64 each way
Austin-Orlando; Fort Lauderdale-New Orleans; Fort Lauderdale-Cleveland.
$69 each way
New York JFK-Turks & Caicos; Charlotte-Boston; Boston-Chicago O’Hare; New York LaGuardia-Fort Lauderdale
$74 each way
Daytona Beach, Fla.-New York JFK; Fort Lauderdale-Austin; Ponce, Puerto Rico-Fort Lauderdale.
See the full list of sale fares on JetBlue's website.
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