No Longer Blue

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.