JetBlue Travel Credits are Anti-Consumer

⚠️ Article status notice: This article has been marked as incomplete

This article needs additional work for its sourcing and verifiability to meet the wiki's Content Guidelines and be in line with our Mission Statement for comprehensive coverage of consumer protection issues. In particular:

1. No neutral point of view.

This notice will be removed once the issue/s highlighted above have been addressed and sufficient documentation has been added to establish the systemic nature of these issues. Once you believe the article is ready to have its notice removed, please visit the Moderator's noticeboard, or the discord and post to the #appeals channel.

Learn more ▼

This Article Requires Additional Verification

---

This article has been flagged due to verification concerns. While the topic might have merit, the claims presented lack citations that live up to our standards, or rely on sources that are questionable or unverifiable by our standards. Articles must meet the Moderator Guidelines and Mission statement; factual accuracy and systemic relevance are required for inclusion here!

Why This Article Is In Question

---

Articles in this wiki are required to:

• Provide verifiable & credible evidence to substantiate claims.
• Avoid relying on anecdotal, unsourced, or suspicious citations that lack legitimacy.
• Make sure that all claims are backed by reliable documentation or reporting from reputable sources.

Examples of issues that trigger this notice:

• A topic that heavily relies on forum posts, personal blogs, or other unverifiable sources.
• Unsupported claims with no evidence or citations to back them up.
• Citations to disreputable sources, like non-expert blogs or sites known for spreading misinformation.

How You Can Improve This Article

---

To address verification concerns:

• Replace or supplement weak citations with credible, verifiable sources.
• Make sure that claims are backed by reputable reporting or independent documentation.
• Provide additional evidence to demonstrate systemic relevance and factual accuracy. For example:
  • Avoid: Claims based entirely on personal anecdotes or hearsay without supporting documentation.
  • Include: Corporate policies, internal communications, receipts, repair logs, verifiable video evidence, or credible investigative reports.

If you believe this notice has been placed in error, or once the article has been updated to address these concerns, please visit the #appeals channel on our Discord server: Join here.

JetBlue's travel credits are anti-consumer due to their restrictive and devaluing nature compared to a cash refund. These limitations lock customers into future business with the airline, effectively removing their purchasing power while allowing JetBlue to hold onto cash for services it did not provide.

Background

When refunding a ticket, JetBlue does not refund with the same currency that was used to purchase the ticket. Instead, JetBlue issues a travel credit which limits what a person can spend their refunded money on keeping it within the JetBlue ecosystem. By issuing travel credits instead of cash refunds, JetBlue coerces future business from customers who may have preferred to take their money to a different airline or travel another way.

Rather than being a true refund, the credit functions as an interest-free loan from the customer to JetBlue or a "donation" with strings attached. This is particularly nefarious as JetBlue's travel credits expire if not spent in a set time period. The gift-card nature of the credit incentivizes an awkward balancing act: either spend more than the credit's value to make up the difference with cash, or risk "breakage" - the industry term for when a customer fails to use the entire value before its expiration date. This encourages overspending to avoid wasting a small balance or, conversely, leaves customers with a nearly-spent balance that is too small to book a new flight and ultimately expires. This dynamic turns the unused portion of a customer's payment into pure, unearned revenue for JetBlue, a practice that shifts all the risk onto the consumer while the airline holds onto cash for services it never rendered.

References

Add a category with the same name as the product, service, website, software, product line or company that this article is about.

The "Incidents" category is not needed.

---

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.