One viral JetBlue blunder has customers convinced it uses surveillance pricing to upcharge on flights |
One viral JetBlue blunder has customers convinced it uses surveillance pricing to upcharge on flights
The airline’s post on X sparked a proposed class action lawsuit over dynamic ticket pricing.
[Photo: VanderWolf Images/Adobe Stock]
JetBlue Airways replies to customers on social media every day—from assuaging their customer service woes to thanking them for choosing their flights. But one seemingly innocuous JetBlue response may have set a class action lawsuit in motion, after customers became convinced that the airline implicated itself in using surveillance pricing.
A social media frenzy
JetBlue first drew suspicions of surveillance pricing with an April 18 reply on X to a user complaining about the airline’s prices. “A $230 increase on a ticket after one day is crazy,” they wrote. “I’m just trying to make it to a funeral.”
JetBlue replied with a recommendation that the user “try clearing your cache and cookies or booking with an incognito window. We’re sorry for your loss.”
The implications of JetBlue’s advice immediately raised eyebrows. If the fare a customer sees can be affected by clearing their cookies or going incognito, live pricing must be impacted by the amount of times they’ve visited the website, and not all customers are seeing the same rates.
JetBlue deleted its reply, but not before it was screenshotted and recirculated. One viral X post of the interaction has since amassed more than 6.2 million views on the platform. “Did JetBlue just admit to surveillance pricing?” the post asked.
Amid hordes of everyday users, some sitting politicians also chimed in on the discourse. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote: “Is JetBlue openly admitting to raising someone’s price hundreds of dollars because they know they have to go to a funeral? Grief shouldn’t come with surge pricing.”
“We need to pass my bill to make surveillance pricing illegal,” Gallego added, referencing the One Fair Price Act, which he introduced in December. The bill would bar companies from using customers’ personal data to set individualized prices.
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