Jetblue Airlines Cancellation Policy

How to Cancel a JetBlue Flight – A Guide to JetBlue Airlines Cancellation Policy and Refund Policy

Changes in travel plans and subsequent flight cancelations are not just mere possibilities but are pretty common for air travel.No matter how well you plan your trip, something or the other is sure to go wrong most of the time, especially during the peak travel seasons. And the biggest thing at stake here is your hard-earned money which is either forfeited due to tricky cancelation and refund rules or converted into vouchers with compromised flexibility.

Therefore, no matter which brand you prefer to fly with, reviewing and analyzing the airline’s cancelation and refund policies before booking your flight is extremely important to protect yourself from the rudest shocks of your life if your travel plans change. The JetBlue Airlines Cancelation policy is a well-laid approach that clearly specifies all the terms and conditions and guidelines associated with flight cancelations and refunds so that you know what to expect even before you buy a ticket.

The JetBlue Airlines Cancellation Policy

The JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy has changed a lot over the years. It has removed cancellation fees from most fares. It has also made the processing of refunds much easier. The policy includes important inputs and guidelines about how to cancel JetBlue reservations and obtain refunds, the terms and conditions for cancelation and useful information about travel credits and cancelation fees.

Now, talking about flight cancelations and not knowing about fare types and fare rules doesn’t make any sense. So, here’s what you should know about the JetBlue fare types and the rules pertaining to them before exploring the other aspects of the policy.

The JetBlue Airlines Fare Types and Credits

To start with, JetBlue offers 5 types of fares which are,

1. i. Blue Basic
2. ii. Blue
3. iii. Blue Plus
4. iv. Blue Extra
5. v. Mint

Out of these five, Blue Basic is the most inflexible fare offered by the airline with a lot of limitations and restrictions. Being the cheapest and entry-level fare, it is both non-refundable and non-cancelable. If passengers have no option other than canceling their Blue Basic tickets, they have to pay a penalty for that. A cancelation fee between $100 and $200 is levied in such cases depending on routes. The other four fares, namely Blue, Blue Plus, Blue Extra and Mint have both refundable and non-refundable varieties. Refundability is optional and attached to standard tickets as add-ons,increasing the travel costs. The refundable options are, of course, sold at higher prices. More on the JetBlue Airlines refundable and non-refundable fares and the cancelation and refund rules associated with them are discussed below.

Refundable Tickets:

As the name suggests, refundable tickets are those on which passengers are allowed to claim and obtain full refunds after cancelation. JetBlue has four refundable fares – Blue Refundable, Blue Plus Refundable, Blue Extra Refundable and Mint Refundable. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, passengers are allowed to obtain full refunds on these fares as long as they cancel their reservations before scheduled departure. Refunds are made to the original modes of payment within 7 to 10 business days if credit cards are used. But if passengers fail to cancel their reservations before scheduled departure and miss their flights, Travel Credits equal to the value of canceled tickets are automatically issued. If passengers book their flights through travel agents, their refundable tickets remain in OPEN status for up to one year from the date of original booking in case of no-shows.

Non-Refundable Tickets:

Non-refundable tickets are those for which the amounts paid by passengers during booking are not returned by the airlines to the original forms of payment after cancelations. Usually, airlines levy a cancelation fee on such tickets and return the amounts paid during booking by passengers in the form of travel vouchers or future credits minus the applicable fees and taxes. The JetBlue Airlines Blue, Blue Plus, Blue Extra and Mint are non-refundable fares and passengers are issued Travel Credits after canceling them before scheduled departure. However, all amounts paid for non-refundable tickets are forfeited if passengers don’t cancel their tickets before scheduled departure and miss their flights. Although JetBlue Airlines has removed cancelation fees from most non-refundable fares, they might be still applicable depending on how the ticket was canceled. For entry-level tickets like the Blue Basic, a cancelation fee between $100 and $200 is still levied for voluntary cancelations. Travel Credits are issued in such cases after deduction of the cancelation fee and non-refundable taxes on certain itineraries. However, none of these rules apply if non-refundable tickets are canceled within 24 hours of purchase. More on cancelation fees and the 24-hour cancelation policy will be discussed later in this article.

JetBlue Travel Credits

JetBlue issues Travel Credits on both refundable and non-refundable tickets. For non-refundable tickets, Travel Credits are the standard instruments for returning the amounts paid by passengers, while in the case of refundable tickets, they are issued when passengers fail to cancel their tickets before departure and miss their flights. In both cases, Travel Credits are issued immediately after cancelations are confirmed and deposited in the Travel Banks opened in passengers’ names. JetBlue Travel Banks are like online wallets where Travel Credits are stored for future use and passengers can check their credit balance after login.

Award Tickets

JetBlue passengers are allowed, as per the terms of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, to cancel their award tickets and get their redeemed TrueBlue points back to their TrueBlue accounts. Passengers aren’t charged any redeposit fee for reinstating the TrueBlue points. Cancellation fees may be charged depending on standard fare terms. Passengers are also allowed to book award vacations packages with JetBlue Airlines by redemption of True Blue points. Here, points can be used to buy the flight parts of the flight plus hotel packages. Passengers are required by rules to pay for the hotel parts in cash. And for award travel bookings where cash was used along with points, points are redeposited to the passengers’ TrueBlue accounts after cancelation whereas the cash parts are returned in the form of Travel Credits to the passengers’ individual Travel Banks for future use.

The JetBlue Airlines Cancelation Policy Guidelines

The JetBlue Airlines cancelation guidelines, rules and terms are given below. Go through them for a quick understanding.

1. i. JetBlue Airlines allows passengers to cancel their flight tickets any time after booking until the scheduled departure. It issues both refunds as well as Travel Credits depending on fare terms and ticket types.
2. ii. JetBlue Airlines offers fully refundable fares to passengers which can be canceled right up to the time of scheduled departure and passengers are allowed to claim and obtain full refunds on them to the original modes of payment.
3. iii. However, refundability is provided here as an add-on that has to be attached to the standard non-refundable tickets at the time of booking. The refundability option is sold at a premium price by JetBlue Airlines which makes refundable fares quite expensive.
4. iv. Blue, Blue Plus, Blue Extra and Mint fares are all standard non-refundable fares offered by JetBlue Airlines. But the same fare types are sold as fully refundable tickets with the refundability add-on attached to them.
5. v. For non-refundable fares, JetBlue Airlines issues Travel Credits after cancelations. The Travel Credits are deposited to the Travel Banks created in the names of each passenger who cancelshis tickets.
6. vi. JetBlue Airlines doesn’t charge any cancellation fee for any fares except Blue Basic. A cancellation fee of $100 per person is levied on these entry-level non-refundable tickets for itineraries within the North and Central America and the Caribbean. A cancellation fee of $200 is charged on Blue Basic tickets for all other international routes.
7. vii. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, online cancelations through the official website can be made by passengers themselves completely free of cost subject to the standard fare cancellation rules. But passengers have to pay a service fee of $25 per person over and above the cancellation fee (if applicable) if they cancel their reservations by phone call to the cancelation and refunds department or through live chat on their Android or IOS devices.
8. viii. JetBlue Airlines has a 24-hour flight cancellation policy which allows passengers to cancel their flights without paying any cancellation fee or service fee within 24 hours of purchase, provided the flight is booked a minimum of 7 days before departure.
9. ix. The rules of the JetBlue Airlines 24-Hour Cancellation policy apply to Blue Basic fares as well. Passengers with these tickets aren’t charged any cancellation fee if they cancel their reservations within 24 hours of purchase. More on this will be discussed later in this article.
10. x. Unlike most other airlines, JetBlue doesn’t guarantee a refund for all fares under its 24-hour cancellation policy. Here, the eligibility for a refund depends on individual fare rules.
11. xi. JetBlue has a strict no-show policy. Passengers who fail to cancel their reservations before scheduled departure and miss their flights due to any reason lose all their booking amounts if they have non-refundable tickets.
12. xii. The amounts paid are returned in the form of Travel Credits to the passengers’ Travel Banks if they have refundable tickets and they fail to board their flights.
13. xiii. In case of voluntary cancelations before scheduled departure, all extra amounts paid for optional products and services are returned to the original forms of payment automatically for refundable tickets. For non-refundable tickets, such amounts are returned in the form of Travel Credits.
14. xiv. For part cancelations of itineraries where passengers continue with their travel, all extra amounts paid for optional products and services are retained by the airline and not returned to the passengers.
15. xv. Taxes and fees are deducted from the funds before refunds are made or Travel Credits are issued in states or countries where it is required by law.
16. xvi. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines flight cancellation policy, all qualified refunds are made to the original forms of payment used by passengers during booking and the refund timing varies according to the modes of payment used.
17. xvii. If payments are made with credit or debit cards, refunds are issued for refundable tickets to the credit or debit card accounts within 7 to 10 business days.
18. xviii. If payments are made with cash or cheques, refunds are made by JetBlue within 20 business days from the date of receipt of the refund request.
19. xix. For non-refundable tickets, Travel Credits are instantly issued and sent to the passengers’ Travel Banks.
20. xx. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, passengers are allowed to cancel their award tickets and get their redeemed True Blue points redeposited to their True Blue accounts without any fee. JetBlue Airlines doesn’t charge any redeposit fee.
21. xxi. JetBlue doesn’t charge any cancellation fee from passengers for canceling their JetBlue Vacations flight plus hotel package bookings. However, whether any deduction would be made from their booking amounts or not would depend upon the respective cancelation terms of the hotels or resorts booked.
22. xxii. For flight plus hotel vacations package bookings, where both cash and points have been used, the redeemed points are redeposited to the passengers’ True Blue accounts, whereas the cash paid is returned to passengers in the form of Travel Credits after cancelations.
23. xxiii. If flights are canceled by JetBlue due to reasons that could be avoided with timely actions on their part, passengers are allowed to make a same-day switch without any additional fee. If no such flights are available in the next 2 hours of the original departure time, passengers qualify for full refunds to their original modes of payment. They may also prefer to hold the value of their canceled tickets in the form of Travel Credits.
24. xxiv. Passengers are also entitled to receive compensation under the guidelines of the Customer Bill of Rights if their flights are canceled within 4 hours of scheduled departure. More refund rules associated with flight disruptions will be discussed later in this article.

How to Cancel JetBlue Airlines Flight?

For serious fliers, unanticipated changes in travel plans are neither desirable nor exciting. Forget about the monetary losses, the hassles involved in the cancelation process seem too overwhelming at times. But not anymore.With the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, canceling flights is painless, quick and uncomplicated. Here is how you can cancel your JetBlue ticket both online and offline.

Online Ticket Cancelation through Official Website

The cheapest way to cancel your JetBlue flight ticket is to do it yourself online from the convenience of your home or office. The word, ‘cheapest,’ is used here because for all other methods of flight cancelation, you are required by rules to pay an extra service fee over and above the applicable cancelation fees. So, if you are comfortable doing things online, follow the steps below to cancel your JetBlue flight without any second thought.

1. i. Enter the URL of the JetBlue Airlines official website, www.jetblue.com on your browser and press enter. On the home page, click on ‘Manage Trips’ on the header right beside Book.
2. ii. You will be redirected to the ‘Manage Trips’ page. Enter your last name and booking confirmation code or the ticket number in the designated boxes and click on the blue ‘Continue’ button.
3. iii. Once your trip details are retrieved, select the flight you want to cancel. There are both change and cancel options on the trip details page. Click on the cancel button to confirm your cancelation request.
4. iv. Refunds can be requested from the same page after confirming cancelation. Refunds will be issued in due time to eligible passengers after the cancelation process is complete.

Booking Cancelation via Phone Call and Online Chat

Passengers can also cancel their flight tickets either by contacting JetBlue via phone call or through online live chat on Android or IOS devices. The phone calls should be made to the JetBlue Airlines toll-free helpdesk numbers +1- 800-538-2583 and +1-888-261-0054. Details like confirmation numbers and ticket numbers should be kept ready before making the phone calls for quicker submission of cancelation requests. Canceling tickets over live chat on WhatsApp is another option available to passengers for submitting cancelation requests. The point to remember though is there is a non-refundable service fee of $25 per person over and above the applicable cancellation fees that is levied for cancelations via phone call and live chat.

Flight Cancelation through Travel Agents

Passengers who booked flight tickets through travel agents can also cancel their reservations through them. Here, full refunds are made to the original modes of payments if voluntary cancelations of refundable fares are done before scheduled departure. For no-shows, canceled refundable tickets are left in an OPEN status for a period of up to one year from the dates of their original purchase. OPEN tickets are available for future travel that don’t have any time limit for usage.

JetBlue Airlines Award Travel Cancellation Policy

Frequent fliers can register themselves with JetBlue Airlines as TrueBlue members under its TrueBlue customer rewards program and book award tickets by redemption of TrueBlue points accumulated over time from regular air travel. Passengers are also allowed to cancel their award tickets and get back their points as per the standard terms and conditions of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy. Here are the key points and guidelines passengers must be aware of before canceling their award tickets.

1. i. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Award Travel Cancellation Policy, passengers who cancel their award tickets are eligible to get back their redeemed TrueBlue points to their TrueBlue accounts.
2. ii. In case of no-shows, the redeemed TrueBlue points are forfeited.
3. iii. JetBlue Airlines doesn’t charge any redeposit fee for reinstating TrueBlue points.However, cancellation fees may apply during award travel cancelation as per the standard fare terms under the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy.
4. iv. If both cash and points were used to book flights, points redeemed are redeposited back to the passengers’ TrueBlue accounts after cancelation, whereas, the cash paid is returned in the form of JetBlue Travel Credits to JetBlue Travel Banks.
5. v. In the case of award travel, flight cancelations of single legs are not allowed for roundtrip bookings. The complete segments must be canceled for roundtrip bookings.

The JetBlue Cancellations within 24 Hours

The JetBlue Airlines 24-Hour Cancellation policy is a bit different from that of other airlines. It allows passengers to cancel their reservations within 24 hours of booking without any cancellation fee irrespective of the fare type they have purchased. But unlike other airlines, it doesn’t issue full refunds to all fare types. Here, the type of refund issued depends on the type of ticket the passenger has purchased. Here are the main highlights of the policy and the associated terms and conditions.

1. i. JetBlue Airlines permits passengers to cancel flight tickets without any cancellation fee irrespective of the fare type they have purchased within 24 hours of booking. This means that as per the rules of the 24-hour cancellation policy, passengers can cancel their flights without paying any penaltywithin 24 hours of booking.
2. ii. However, like other airlines, JetBlue doesn’t guarantee a full refund for 24-hour cancelations. Refunds of the amounts paid during bookings still depend on the respective refund terms of the fare types originally purchased.
3. iii. The rules of the 24-hour cancelation policy apply to Blue Basic tickets as well. Passengers with Blue Basic tickets are notcharged any cancellation fee if they cancel their reservations within 24 hours of purchase.
4. iv. For the policy rules to be applicable, the tickets must be booked at least 7 days or more before the original date of departure.
5. v. For longer itineraries, the entire booking must be canceled. Partial cancelations do not qualify for the said benefits under this policy.
6. vi. The rules and the benefits of this policy do not apply to reservations of the JetBlue Vacations plans.

JetBlue Airlines No-Show Policy

As per the JetBlue Airlines Flight Cancellation policy, a no-show is when a passenger doesn’t cancel his ticket before scheduled departure and misses or fails to board his flight due to any reason. The following terms and conditions apply to no-showsunder the JetBlue Airlines No-show policy.

1. i. If passengers with non-refundable tickets miss their flights without canceling their reservations before scheduled departure, all amounts paid are forfeited.
2. ii. The amounts paid for optional products and services at the time of booking such as priority boarding, extra bags, Even More® Space, etc. are also forfeited in case of no-shows.
3. iii. Passengers are not allowed to get a full refund for their refundable tickets if they miss their flights without canceling reservations before scheduled departure. All amounts paid in such cases for booking are returned in the form of JetBlue travel credits which can be used for future travel.
4. iv. The TrueBlue points redeemed to buy award flights are completely forfeited if passengers don’t cancel their award tickets in time before scheduled departure and fail to board their flights.

JetBlue Airlines Cancellation Fees

JetBlue Airlines has eliminated cancellation fees for all its fare types except Blue Basic. For itineraries that include travel within North America, Central America and the Caribbean, a cancellation fee of $100 is levied per person on the Blue Basic fares. The cancellation fee doubles to $200 per person for all other international routes. Other than this, a service fee of $25 per person is levied on all fare types if cancelations are done via phone call or online chat. This fee is over and above the cancellation fee that is levied on Blue Basic. Passengers self-canceling their tickets online through the JetBlue official website are not charged this $25 service fee. JetBlue Airlines doesn’t charge any redeposit fee for reinstating TrueBlue points in case of award travel cancelations, but JetBlue Airlines Cancellation Fees may apply subject to fare terms under the airline’s standard cancelation rules and guidelines.

The JetBlue Airlines Refund Policy

JetBlue Airlines may not have the most flexible refund policy in the industry, but it is good enough to help passengers tackle abrupt changes in travel plans due to unforeseeable events in life. The refund policy enforces strict rules and regulations along with careful consideration of passengers’ needs. Here are the key points of the JetBlue Airlines Refund policy that may be of help if you are currently pursuing refunds or planning to submit your refund request soon.

1. i. As per the JetBlue Airlines Refund policy, eligibility for getting a refund after flight cancelation depends on the fare type the passenger had booked.
2. ii. The airline offers both refundable and non-refundable fares. Passengers are allowed to claim full cash refunds to the original modes of payment for refundable tickets, whereas, for non-refundable tickets, they are issued Travel Credits for future use.
3. iii. The JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy mandates that in order to qualify for refunds, all cancelations must be done before scheduled departure. JetBlue is very strict on no-shows.
4. iv. For non-refundable tickets, all amounts paid during booking are forfeited if passengers fail to cancel their reservations before scheduled departure and miss their flights. For roundtrip bookings, this leads to the forfeiture of the total amounts paid for the entire segment.
5. v. In case of no-shows for non-refundable tickets, all money paid for optional products and services such as priority security, extra bags and Even More® Space are forfeited.
6. vi. For refundable tickets Travel Credits are automatically issued after no-shows. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, passengers lose their eligibility to get full refunds in such cases.
7. vii. If cancelations are done according to the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy, amounts paid for optional products and services are either refunded to the original modes of payments or their values adjusted to the Travel Credits issued depending on the fare types purchased.
8. viii. However, payments made for optional products and services are treated as non-refundable and are not returned in any form to the passengers if they cancel parts of their itineraries and still continue to travel despite following all cancelation norms and guidelines. The only exception is the pet fee which is returned in all cases as per standard refund timings subject to adherence tostandard terms of cancelation.
9. ix. If flights are canceled by JetBlue, not because of any inclement weather or other uncontrollable circumstances, passengers are given the options to either get back all amounts paid in the forms of JetBlue Travel Credits or claim for refunds to the original forms of payments, provided the canceled tickets can’t be rebooked within the next 2 hours of the original departure time.
10. x. Also, as per the Customer Bill of Rights, passengers are eligible for compensation if their flights are canceled within 4 hours of scheduled departure.
11. xi. If changes between one hour and two hours are made in the flights’ original schedule, passengers have the option to either travel by another flight or cancel the reservation altogether. As per the rules of the JetBlue Airlines Flight Cancellation policy, they are eligible to get back the amounts paid in such cases in the form of Travel Credits.
12. xii. If JetBlue makes changes to the schedule of flights by more than 2 hours, passengers are given both the options of receiving a Travel Credit or obtaining a full refund after voluntary cancelation.
13. xiii. Passengers are also eligible to claim and receive Travel Credits or a full refund to the original modes of payments under the JetBlue Airlines flight disruptions guidelines if the status of their flights is changed from non-stop to connecting all of a sudden.
14. xiv. For award tickets, redeemed TrueBlue points are returned to passengers’ TrueBlue accounts.
15. xv. For cancelations of JetBlue Vacations bundles where both cash and points are used to book flight + hotel packages, points are redeposited to the passengers’ TrueBlue accounts and the cash paid for hotel bookings are returned in the form of Travel Credits to the passengers’ Travel Banks.
16. xvi. All refunds are made to the original modes of payments within 7 to 10 business days for credit or debit cards and within 20 business days for cash and cheques.
17. xvii. Travel Credits are issued instantly after completion of the cancelation process. They can be viewed from the JetBlue Travel Banks.

How to get a refund fromJetBlue Airlines?

For voluntary cancelations, refunds can be requested from the same ‘Manage Trips’ section of the official website while submitting cancelation requests. The entire online cancelation processhas been discussed step-by-step earlier in this article. For unexpected cancelations by JetBlue without prior intimation, passengers can either contact JetBlue directly via its helpdesk phone number and ask for a refund or fill up the online refund request form by logging into the ‘Manage Trips’ section of the official website. For bookings through travel agencies, refunds must be requested through respective agencies.

Exceptions to the cancelation and refund rules

There are a few exceptional circumstances when standard cancelation and refund rules don’t apply to voluntary cancelations. JetBlue has a separate set of guidelines for such exceptional situations. Here they are.

Death

In case of the death of a ticketed passenger full refund is made to the original mode of payment irrespective of the fare type he originally purchased. Refunds are made for the deceased ticketed passenger and his traveling companion. To receive the refund, a copy of the death certificate must be submitted for verification to JetBlue Airlines within 14 days of the event. Even if it is a travel agency booking, the ticket and its liabilities are taken over by JetBlue Airlines in such cases.

If death happens to an immediate family member of the ticketed passenger, and he has to be present during the funeral and manage other responsibilities, he may be allowed to cancel the ticket without paying any cancellation fee where applicable, provided he submits a copy of the death certificate and invitation to the funeral. If the passenger reschedules his flight to another date in such a situation, he can claim for a refund of any change fee he paid which would be duly returned in the form of a credit to his Travel Bank.

Illness

The exceptional situation clause of the JetBlue Airlines Cancellation policy doesn’t provide much flexibility to the passengers though if they or someone close in their families fall seriously ill. Refunds are not made for non-refundable tickets. And tickets remain in OPEN status for future use up to one year from the dates of original issuance if passengers go on to cancel their reservations. Change fees are applied when passengers use these tickets in the future.

Military Orders

JetBlue waives applicable cancellation fees or change fees for active military servicemen and their immediate family members traveling with them if a rescheduling or a cancelation of their itinerary becomes unavoidable due to military orders. The defense personnel in such cases must fax their duty orders to JetBlue Airlines for verification upon which applicable Travel Credits would be issued and deposited to their Travel banks for future use.