Another crazy AYCJ week itinerary

Unlimited flight access can be a dangerous thing. Even with (or perhaps because of) the somewhat quirky schedules and routing options JetBlue offers, it looks like I’ll be able to do a reasonable amount of damage (likely mostly to myself) during my month of flying. I managed to put the finishing touches on a doozie of a travel week last night. And the best part is that I’m actually going to be stopping in a few of the places in addition to simply flying a ton.

Starting on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll be flying to San Jose, California, mostly because I’ve never been to that airport, via Boston. I get back to New York on Monday morning and will immediately fly out to Dulles and then on to Long Beach and then up to Portland, Oregon. I actually overnight in Portland – 14 hours should be plenty of time for dinner and a good night’s sleep – before catching a ride on Amtrak’s Cascades train on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night is Seattle – Long Beach – Ft. Lauderdale arriving in Florida in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

The second half of the week will include my island adventure for the AYCJ month. I’ll head first to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic for 36 hours from Ft. Lauderdale. I actually am taking a better timed, more direct route rather than flying to get some completely awesome lines on the map. I’d like to think of it as maturity but I’m pretty sure that cannot really be there. So I overnight in the DR and then from Santo Domingo I head 432 miles east to St. Maarten. Of course, I’m flying via JFK for a total distance traveled of 3230 miles. I’ll even potentially get a couple hours at home and to sleep in my own bed before heading back out to JFK for the 10:20am flight to the plane-spotting mecca. I’ll sit on the beach all day and watch the planes come and go before hopefully heading over to the French side for some decent food and nightlife (assuming I’m at all coherent at that point) and then back to the beach and the airport in the morning before heading back up to JFK.

All in, that’s 17,851 miles flown in a seven day span. Somewhat miraculously, I’m going to do it while only spending two of the seven nights on red-eye flights. I’ll get to spend time in the Pacific Northwest (and maybe even get a business meeting in there) and two Caribbean destinations. I’ll even be home in time for a (rather late) dinner in NYC on Saturday.

Not a bad travel week at all.

Maps courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper

Related Posts:

• All You Can Jet international taxes report
• San Jose is not a natural connection point between Boston and New York
• Starting my AYCJ route planning
• All You Can Jet 2010

All You Can Jet international taxes report

One of the drawbacks of the JetBlue All You Can Jet (AYCJ) pass is that one still has to pay all the international taxes. I know that they’re almost all government-assessed fees, but it still sucks. And figuring out just how much they’ll add to the price of your booking can be a pain.

Well, the booking site went live a little early tonight (woohoo…I’ve got 5 bookings already!) so I spent a few minutes cataloging some of the taxes. Here’s what I’ve got:

JFK-AUA	$81.70
JFK-BQN	$32.20
JFK-BDA	$87.50
JFK-BOG	$93.70
JFK-CUN	$89.89
JFK-KIN	$97.54
JFK-MBJ	$92.82
JFK-NAS	$91.20
JFK-POP	$126.80
JFK-PSE	$32.20
JFK-SJO	$71.55
JFK-SJU	$32.20
JFK-STI	$126.80
JFK-SDQ	$126.80
JFK-SXM	$81.55

 

All taxes are calculated based on a round-trip itinerary leaving 14 September and returning 16 September except for SXM because that route doesn’t operate those days. In some cases the flights route via FLL or MCO but, where possible, I confirmed that the taxes are the same with and without the connection.

Hopefully this helps folks with their budgeting for AYCJ taxes.

UPDATE: JetBlue had a few destinations missing during my initial research. They’re available now:

JFK-UVF	$79.40
JFK-BGI	$75.70
JFK-PUJ	$126.80

 

Related Posts:

• Which unlimited flight pass is right for you?
• All You Can Jet 2010

San Jose is not a natural connection point between Boston and New York

And yet I’m strongly considering flying the route anyways. Why? Because I can.

I like the way the lines look on the map and San Jose, California is one of only a handful of domestic JetBlue cities I haven’t flown through at some point. I think that this year’s AYCJ will get me all the ones I’m missing (SRQ, HPN & RIC are the others). I haven’t necessarily flown through all the airports on JetBlue, but I’ve visited them at one point.

And in the meantime I’m trying to pick a day for a 2.5 hour layover in San Jose as I get from Boston to New York City. New lines on the map, new airport and extra servings of animal crackers on the transcons. Why not? After all, I really am this crazy.

Thanks, as always, to the Great Circle Mapper for the awesome map images.

Starting my AYCJ route planning

I actually enjoy the planning of my AYCJ adventures almost as much as the travel. Yeah, that’s just one of the very strange things about me. Still, I’m looking at timetables now (try this version) and starting to piece together the trip. On the agenda for the first week:

• College football
• At least 4 new routes I’ve not flown before
• A new airport I’ve not flow to or from before
• Two transcon segments
• Lunch and dinner with friends in two or three cities
• A surprise birthday party where I’m the surprise visitor
• About 8,000 miles flown

And that’s just warming up for the real travel fun in the following weeks.

Map courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper

AYCJ 2010: Now with more crazy!

Well, here we are. It has been nearly a year since the AYCJ party wrapped up in October 2009 but JetBlue came through in 2010 with the AYCJ pass again. Time to dust off the old blog and get started on planning my 2010 assault of the JetBlue route network.

What's different this time around? Well, for me the main answer is that I don't have a full-time gig so I'll be traveling during the week in addition to on the weekends. That should open up some opportunities to actually stay in some of the cities I pass through. Oh, and I think I'm going to try for a few more international destinations this time around. Yeah, they cost extra, but probably worth it, especially since airfares are up in general.

I'm looking forward to catching up with some of my AYCJ 2009 cronies and meeting a net set in 2010. Let's go!

Free tix for your AYCJ tales!

Did you do something amazing on your All You Can Jet pass?  Change the world?  Change yourself?  Change your underwear?

Hopefully you’ve got a “yes” for at least one of those.  And if you have more than one, jetBlue wants to know all about it.  To encourage folks telling their stories they’re giving away free jetBlue flights – one a month for an entire year – for two lucky winners of a contest.  Tell the story of your great adventures or how you used the pass to help others.  One winner will be chosen from each category and will fly around on jetBlue all next year for free!

Entries are due by 5pm EST on Sunday, November 1, 2009.  If you haven’t told your tale yet it is time to get started.  And you’re limited to only 500 words for the story so it shouldn’t take too long to write.  Get on it!

Full details of the competition and the entry form can be found here: http://bit.ly/aycjtales.  Again, the contest closes out this Sunday afternoon.

Looking forward to AYCJ memories

Barely two weeks have passed since the original All You Can Jet passes expired.  The memories of my trips – 25 flights across 19 cities and over 25,000 miles – are still fresh in my mind.  The three hour tour of San Juan by the light of the moon, driving through a monsoon between Austin and Houston and racing across the Bay from Oakland to San Francisco stand out particularly vividly.

And yet the best thing I can think of right now about the month I spent crisscrossing North America is actually the future: the next AYCJ experience and how I’ll make it even better.  That’s right, I’m looking for a repeat of this phenomenal event and I’m pretty confident that it is coming.

Why?  Because it wasn’t just great for the customers.  It was also a big win for jetBlue.  The airline reported their financial results for Q3 earlier in the week and they actually made money, a rarity in the airline industry.  More significant, however, is that the AYCJ was actually part of the profit, not just a marketing boondoggle.  While they wouldn’t release specific numbers related to the pass there were some interesting comments made about it by CEO Dave Barger including these juicy nuggets:

• The program was “revenue positive” for the airline, plus the invaluable marketing and online buzz generated by the offering.
• “[AYCJ was] by far the most successful promotion in our history.”
• “The loyalty that this further built for the jetBlue brand exceeded our expectations.”
• Approximately 50% of AYCJers were new members of the TrueBlue program.

So the program was profitable.  It cast jetBlue in a positive light in the media, among customers and with its employees.  And it brought in new customers.  There’s no reason not to repeat such an event.

Plus, some of the marketing folks have hinted that it is going to be coming back.  I’ve got my credit card ready to go and my bag is rarely unpacked enough that it’ll take more than 30 minutes to be out the door.  I’m really looking forward to those memories.