Not an ice vacation, JetBlue

Christopher Elliott

Travel columnist

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Q: I’m trying to acquire a refund for a hotel booked through JetBlue Getaways and Worldwide Travel Exchange. Respective calendar months ago we postpaid for a holiday in Puerto Anti-Racketeering Law through JetBlue’s Web site. But our flight out of Kennedy was canceled just after the ill-famed water ice storms.

JetBlue said we should reach Worldwide Travel Exchange to acquire our money back. A Worldwide Travel Exchange representative told us that they would not call off our holiday because we still had three nighttimes left on our hotel. Never mind that the adjacent available JetBlue flight to San Juan wasn’t for another four days.advertisement

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A expression at the footing and statuses on JetBlue’s Web land site proposes JetBlue isn’t responsible for refunding the hotel part of your vacation. “JetBlue is acting solely as an mediator between traveling providers and consumers to ease the negotiation, booking of, and payment for holiday bundle adjustments and services to be provided by traveling providers directly to consumers.” it says. “Unused bundle constituents may not be exchanged, transferred or refunded.”

That also intends that Worldwide Travel Exchange is well within its rights to maintain your money. Technically, you were what’s called a “no-show” and aren’t entitled to anything.

But wait. JetBlue, from whose land site you bought the hotel, canceled your flight after its operational meltdown last Valentine’s Day. Shouldn’t it make more than than just go through you off to one of its partners?

Yes. But while we’re dealing with hypothetical questions, here’s another one: Why did it have got to come up to this in the first place?

Next clip you’re stuck â€" and I trust there isn’t somes adjacent clip â€" retrieve to reexamine all of your options. JetBlue’s contract of carriage, which is the legal understanding between you and the airline, entitles you to an contiguous refund when a flight is canceled. (Some air hoses also will wing you to your finish on another carrier.) You might have got establish another manner to attain San Juan.

Here are two other ideas. See working with a traveling agent, who could have got probably saved your vacation. I cognize some agents who can make what ordinary people can’t, including determination a manner out of New House Of York after an water ice storm. And believe about traveling coverage next time. A good policy would have got covered you and prevented the concern that you ended up with.

I contacted JetBlue on your behalf. In improver to a refund and $900 in traveling coupons, the air hose agreed to publish credits in the amount of $310, which covers the first postpaid nighttime of your hotel stay.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and the host of “What You Get For The Money: Vacations” on the Fine Living Network. E-mail him at
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