We’ve heard stories before of airline employees generating vouchers to sell, pocketing the money. That’s theft and they eventually get caught. One Southwest employee was caught with $36,000 in stolen travel vouchers hidden in an airport locker. Another was caught selling $15,000 worth of travel per day. One United employee stole $559,346 in meal vouchers.
Reportedly one JetBlue flight attendant stole thousands of dollars from victims by selling flight passes. She got caught, and the passes were cancelled. One of her victims even made the story part of their comedy routine.
That would only sort of be stealing from the airline if these were her passes, and they were supposed to be honored. It seems like that may be part of the story, or at least how she started, selling passes that weren’t eligible for sale. And in that case JetBlue honored some seats they’d expected to honor, just for different people, and ultimately (since the passes were cancelled) fewer seats than they’d planned.
The marketing pitch was bigger than that, though, and she wasn’t just selling travel on JetBlue: ‘$250 roundtrips with two week advance purchase for partner airline travel’ including international and claimed that these were won as a prize and that they were transferable. But even that’s not the whole story.
- She was also reportedly selling trips at below cost charged to a (someone’s) credit card
- Those discounted trips hooked people in, and then she took more of their money
- Which she kept, or at least didn’t return or provide the promised travel.
Somehow first class travel comes into this, and disputes through Venmo, where the flight attendant allegedly photoshopped screen shots to make it look like travel had been delivered (in order to win the disputes).
She was apparently married to a well-known MMA fighter, and marketed the passes as discount travel with him as part of the pitch.
When things came crashing down, she tried to refund some passengers. One of her customers claims she was selling new travel to pay back previous customers. Reportedly she says that since she no longer has a job (JetBlue) she’s having a hard time getting the money to pay people back.
According to JetBlue,
We take matters like this very seriously, and after a thorough investigation, we learned that this individual was misrepresenting that they could sell JetBlue flights in an unauthorized and improper fashion. I can report the person no longer works for JetBlue.
We deeply regret that anyone was affected by this person’s conduct. We have strongly encouraged anyone who may have been a victim of this individual to contact their financial institution and law enforcement, as they may be able to assist in recovering funds. We have and will continue to assist law enforcement in whatever way possible to complete their investigation. As a reminder, customers should only purchase travel from authorized channels or verified travel agents.
Apparently there are at least five active civil cases against the flight attendant.
Ghetto jetBlue wins again!
A flight attendants?……..you don’t say
So a JB employee scams JB customers and JB tells them to go after the (now former) employee , it isn’t our problem.
Buddy passes are bad news! Seems like she’d offer Mint and pocket quite the savings – and just tell people they’d get their boarding passes at the gate.
Oye. You’d think being married to an MMA fighter might have some good financial incentives – why I guess not.