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Full Refunds Not Always Guaranteed at JetBlue if Canceling a Flight Within 24 Hours

  The airlines don’t like to publicize it, but starting in 2012 the Department of Transportation required US airlines to make refunds to passengers who cancelled their non-refundable tickets/reservations within 24 hours of making them.

That is a great consumer right.

One New Yorker, however, needed to take an emergency flight in the next day or two, so he bought a ticket on JetBlue. His plans shortly changed, and within 24 hours he contacted JetBlue to cancel the reservation. They said he did not qualify for a full refund. What?

JetBlue’s contract of carriage states this:

*MOUSE PRINT:

“Following receipt of payment from a Passenger, JetBlue will allow a reservation to be held at the quoted fare for 24 hours, if the reservation is made at least one week prior to the flight’s departure. [Emphasis added.] If such reservation is canceled within 24 hours of booking, Passenger will receive a full refund without assessment of a cancellation fee.”

Sure enough, the fine print of the DOT’s regulation provides:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Allows “passengers to hold a reservation without payment, or to cancel it without penalty, for 24 hours after the reservation is made, if the reservation is made one week or more prior to a flight’s departure date.”

Who knew?

A check of some other airlines’ policies and a call to U.S. Airways suggest that their cancellation policies don’t impose that seven-day in advance purchase requirement to get a full refund.

As always, don’t assume. Ask your airline if you indeed have the unrestricted right to cancel your ticket within 24 hours of purchase.

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Office Depot Offers $800 of “Free” (?) Software

  Every year, the office supply superstores offer either cash rebates or free software as an inducement to buy tax preparation software (like TurboTax and H&R Block) from their store.

This year, as in previous years, Office Depot is making a generous offer of $800 of free software.

Office Depot

But, according to Mouse Print* reader WAE, the promised rebates did not cover the full purchase price of some of the software titles.

Checking the Office Depot website for the purchase price and the promised rebate revealed he was right!

*MOUSE PRINT:


Office Depot
[Click reconstructed image above to enlarge, then click again]

Mouse Print* wrote to Office Depot’s media relations department asking them why they were charging money for supposedly free software and how they were going to correct the problem for customers they overcharged.

Office Depot did not respond.

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Tropicana Farmstand Fruit/Veggie Juice Surprises

  Tropicana has a new juice on the market called Farmstand. It is a “100% fruit and vegetable juice” which the company says provides one serving of fruit and one serving of vegetables in every eight-ounce glass.

It comes in such luscious-sounding flavors as Peach Mango, Strawberry Banana, and Pomegranate Blueberry.

Tropicana Farmstand

When looking at the ingredients statement, it may come as a surprise that there is not a lot of strawberry or banana in the product above.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Tropicana Farmstand

Besides water, the primary ingredient is sweet potato juice. Sweet potato juice? Yep. And it has more grape, apple and carrot juice than either strawberry or banana.

Tropicana’s other two Farmstand varieties also are composed primarily of water and sweet potato juice, with the product’s named fruits way down the list of ingredients.

For all MrConsumer knows, these juices are wonderfully tasty compared to the V8s of the world. But funny how the primary ingredient — sweet potato — is almost hidden and not clearly identifiable on both the product label and in their display advertising.

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