JetBlue Airways today launched its first-ever corporate meetings product, with discounts, benefits and restrictions similar to programs offered by their legacy competitors.
The CompanyBlue Meetings program is applicable to corporate meetings of at least 15 flyers with the same destination and whose travel is arranged by "designated corporate meeting planners with a single company billing source" through either JetBlue's Web site or a dedicated toll-free number, the carrier said in a statement.
Benefits include one complimentary travel certificate for each 40 attendees booked, and an additional "credit for future travel on JetBlue that is equal to the dollar value of the average fare-minus taxes and fees-for every 40 seats booked, to be used toward future JetBlue CompanyBlue Meeting bookings," the carrier said.
Travel must be booked at least 60 days before departure with a $50 per-attendee deposit, but the carrier will not require passenger names or final payment until 30 days before the flight. If the date of travel is more than 60 days in the future, the airline will allow seats to be held for two weeks without a deposit and will release up to 10 percent of seats without penalties. JetBlue will waive the $30 change fee for changes up to 10 percent of the total number of booked seats.
JetBlue joins most of its low-cost and legacy carrier brethren in offering a similarly constructed discounted public meetings program, with two notable exceptions: Southwest Airlines, which cancelled its program in 2003
(Meetings Today, Dec. 8, 2003), and Delta Air Lines, which did likewise in 2005
(Meetings Today, Jan. 17, 2005).