[BlueMarble]

On Thursday, April 7th we had two employees that had scheduled flights from Raleigh, NC (RDU) to Portland, ME (PWM) that JetBlue canceled due to mechanical reasons. Lian (JetBlue call center) told me the reason was that the schedule flight crew had flown too many hours but our staff did not know this at the time.
The flight number was E190 scheduled to depart at 2:30 pm on April 7th, 2016. Our employees, Jodi and Katrina were told at the JetBlue counter in the Raleigh airport that JetBlue had rescheduled them to fly the next day on a multi-leg trip that would not get them home until late in the evening the next day. They were also told that they would not provide them with a hotel voucher for the overnight stay nor put them on another airline to get them home that day. They were told that JetBlue would credit them the cost of their cancelled flight only which was far short of their costs to accommodate this cancellation.
Jodi and Katrina did not want to sleep in the airport and they both had business to attend to the next day so they booked their new flights on American Airlines to get home that same evening.
After speaking with Lian in the JB Orlando Call Center,we were told that the JetBlue representative at the airport did not give Jodi and Katrina the correct information and JetBlue would have been willing to rebook their flight with a different airline.
Because of this error, we are requested a reimbursement on the cost difference between the cost of the American Airlines tickets and the cost of the JetBlue tickets. The cost of the JetBlue tickets were $126.67 for each ticket. The cost of the American Airline tickets was $339.10 per ticket, plus a $35.00 airport service fee. We requested a reimbursement of $247.43 per ticket for a total of $494.86. I explained to JB in multi-emails and phone calls that they cannot expect my employees to sleep in the airport and I cannot expect them to pay for their hotel stay out of their own pockets. Travel insurance has nothing to do with this. This is
common business practice. I have personally been given hotel vouchers for similar reasons from United and Delta in recent years. It is a simple and logical customer service remedy to a situation that JB created. However the JB complaint desk is now saying the call center information is wrong and they won't reimburse us. Considering all the bad publicity they received from that tarmac
stay in 2011, and the supposed JetBlue Traveler Bill of Rights I would think they would be much more aggressive with fairly resolving issues that
are within their control. Given that business travelers will not sleep in an airport overnight they must realize that they are immediately alienating thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of business travelers with this policy. My employees realized that a hotel stay would cost them
more with food, accommodations and ground transportation then the return flights they found on American. So they wisely chose to fly home that day rather than stay overnight. As an executive that is responsible for dozens of business travelers that make dozens of flights a year I can assure you that I have choices for what airlines we use for business travel. JB's response was to provide $75 vouchers per employees and to credit back the cancelled JB leg but that still falls way short by $344.86. JetBlue refuses to compensate us for our expenses. I am extremely disappointed in this airline and their unfair business practices. Buyer beware.