For over
a year, I’ve been trying to straighten out my airplane tickets with JetBlue. I
had to cancel in 2020 because of the pandemic and then again in 2021 because
the VRBO owner had to take a month off. I never knew how much difficulty these
two canceled trips we’re going to cost me. I think if I had known ahead of time,
I would’ve just let the money go, but it goes against the grain of my
personality to let a dime slip through my fingers.
Since
this involved over $700 I was quite persistent. During Covid I spent several
hours on the phone waiting for JetBlue to answer, and I finally got through and
I purchased my ticket for almost $250 more than the original. All that waiting,
just for it to crumble before my eyes when I had to cancel it again. That’s
when it got really interesting. I called them up about a month later and I was
told I got 7000 points for my canceled tickets. Confused why my two tickets
were worth so little, I decided to get a JetBlue credit card and tried to get
enough points to earn new flight tickets without spending extra money. The
first time I went onto check flights, it cost double that amount, 15,000 points,
so I called up, waited an hour and got the confirmation that I only received
7000 points, nothing else. I didn’t understand, but decided I’d talk to a
supervisor.
And so
on and on I trudged through the phone lines and finally after another hour I
got to a supervisor. I told her my tale of woe of how I needed more points and
that I didn’t understand why I only got 7000 points for my two flight tickets.
She completely understood and her voice was wobbly with concern. I felt sorrier
for her than for me because she had to deal with this every day. She nearly
burst into tears telling me that this was happening to everyone, everywhere and
that it was getting really difficult to tell people the bad news.
So I
just let it go and worked on earning my points. I finally earned 15,000 points
and went online to only find out the flight cost 20,000 points now. I didn’t
have the heart to call back so I decided I would just earn the points. When I
went back on the site the flight now cost 25,000 points. I felt like JetBlue
was playing a game of cat and mouse with me. I called once again but I was told
that if I wanted a supervisor, I had to call back two hours later.
Well by
then I was broiling. I had earned 36,000 points and now a flight cost 40,000.
But a few days later I called again and I asked for a supervisor. He informed
me it would take me from one to two hours to wait for a supervisor. That’s when
I lost it!
I told
him that I was going to report JetBlue to the attorney general of New York and
I was going to file a complaint and tell all my friends about it. I was a
little bit loud. My husband told me he heard me outside but I couldn’t help
myself because I’d been dealing with this for almost 2 years! I reminded myself
that I was a Christian and I should be nicer to this young man who was trying
to help me.
He
asked me for my name, account number and all that kind of information and so I
calmed down and gave it to him. I questioned him whether he was going to help
me since no supervisor had been able to. I waited on the phone for 10 to 15
minutes and he finally got back to me. He told me that I had a travel bank
account.
“What?”
Once again, I was confused. I stated emphatically. “No one ever told me about
that?” I remember another airline doing that, but JetBlue never mentioned it. I
figured there’d be nothing in it and everything would’ve been expired anyway.
As I waited
on the phone line, he looked it over and told me that I had $530 credit. “Really!”
I was surprised. “Oh that’s pretty good that might cover most of the flight”. I
was pleased but wondered why no one ever told me about this? Then he said. “You
have more money than that, about $250 that was expired, but that I’m going to try
to extend the expiration date and put it back into my account. I waited again
and when he got back on the line, he added. “You now have $867 for your
flights,”
I could
hardly believe that this nice young man was able to help me so much. I’d been
buying things furiously on the jet blue card to get points, only to need more points
every time I tried to book a flight! Six months ago, even the supervisor couldn’t
help me, and she never told me about this. It seemed almost kind of miraculous.
It restored my faith, and I was no longer upset or “blue” about the whole
situation. While we both worked on purchasing the ticket, I asked. “What’s your
name?’
“Emmanuel.”
What? I
could barely believe his name since I thought I reached an Indian call center
and his accent gave him away. He said it again. “Emmanuel”
Emanuel.
God with us. Of course!
No one
else had been able to access this $850 plus sitting in my travel bank account, except
Emmanuel, God with us! Here I had the all the resources I needed for two flights
for my husband and I that included the seats and the luggage, but I hadn’t
known about it. No one else had known about it either apparently. But the money
had been there the whole-time, waiting for me. Yet I had to reach the right
one. Emanuel – God with us in order for all of it to be accessed. I even had the
expired money restored, to my astonishment.
What an
object lesson! God has everything we need for this life and the next, but we
need to go to Him in order to get it. He even restores what we think is lost.
