JetBlue passengers offered $10,000 to change flights – but all of them refuse

Travellers chose to remain on Jetblue service to Cancun

Passengers on a recent flight were offered a whopping $10,000 to voluntarily give up their seat – but at first none of them accepted the generous offer.

Travellers onboard a JetBlue service from the US to Cancun in Mexico last month were asked if they would be bumped in exchange for airline credit, an experience which one woman documented in a video that has since gone viral on social media.

Tiktok user Jess Ries (@riesjess) uploaded a post, now viewed more than 10 million times, in which she filmed herself on the plane looking tired and frustrated.

She wrote on the video: “Supposed to be on the way to Cancun but we can’t leave until one person gives up their seat. They’re offering $10,000 and no one will take it.”

The post was captioned: “It’s been 45 mins”.

In one of two follow-up videos, she claimed that one passenger had managed to negotiate the fee up to $15,000 of credit.

In a final post on the subject, she addressed commenters who had expressed disbelief that she wouldn’t take the money and get a later flight.

“If you would’ve done it differently that’s fine!” she captioned the post. “Nine people ended up with a ton of credit and I’m sure they’ll enjoy it!!! And I get to enjoy my vacay”.

During the video, Ms Ries explained her reasoning for refusing the offer, saying: “It was flight credit – not real money, not cash. They told us that the credit was only valid for JetBlue flights within one year.

“Considering that JetBlue doesn’t have flights to many destinations – they don’t even fly out of the airport near my house – it didn’t seem realistic for me to spend $10,000 in flight credit on JetBlue.”

She added that she would have considered the offer if it had been made by a different airline which flew more extensively to destinations in Europe.

“On top of that, I’m on a spring break trip with 30 of my friends… and no one wanted to leave the group or ditch the trip,” she said, adding that flights to Cancun were fully booked for the rest of the week, meaning there was no guarantee she would have been able to squeeze onto another flight.

She claimed the reason behind the need to free up seats on board was because JetBlue had to transport crew members to Cancun to staff other flights.

“The flights they were originally supposed to be on got cancelled because of a snowstorm,” she said.

The Independent has approached JetBlue for comment.