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Comment by cb33 | Hacker News Reader

This letter really bothers me for a few reasons:

1. The letter did not need to be open at all. If you want to travel the country for 30 days without paying, more power to you but why not just send it to the jetBlue CEO directly?

2. The people behind this letter obviously think their idea is amazingly brilliant. Which it isn't. Everyone has interesting stories. You could go into a Dunkin' Donuts at 3AM and hear some pretty crazy stuff. No need to be at 30,000 feet.

3. These people probably WILL get free flights or some other special support from jetBlue because God forbid a publicly-traded company didn't listen to any and every simple Jack who asked for something on the internet.

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Exactly. Why did they have to make it public? To put pressure on Jetblue?

I don't think this trip is a smart idea. 43 flights in 30 days? They'll be spending their time running to and from and around airports. I doubt they'll enjoy it.

I have to admit that I'll follow the blog though.

The funniest part is that its not just 43 flights. They're visiting 43 cities, and taking 90 flights!

I don't think they're asking for free flights. I think they are asking for the 'missed flight' penalty to be waived. Since they are trying to pack so many flights into 30 days, they understandably might miss a flight or two due to delays.

42 flights in 30 days does seem a bit much though. For many of those flights, they are just going to be sleeping through the flight anyways (and unable to talk to 'interesting people').

I'm not sure why, but I'll respond briefly to your three points.

1. It did not need to be open. But I am making a website documenting my journey. Sorry if someone thought it was interesting and posted it to this site where you were forced to read it.

2. We don't really think it's amazingly brilliant. It is remarkable, though, in that most people have never done anything like this. We just thought it would be an interesting way to spend a month and I personally hoped it would help me accomplish some goals: I want to become a better designer and a better writer. This journey will allow me to practice both of those things. I don't have any data, but I think the people on airplanes are more interesting than the people at Dunkin' Donuts.

3. We won't get free flights. We paid our 600 dollars and we are abiding by the rules. We just want to see if they will help us out if their planes are late or cancelled.

If it were another unscrupulous airline, I would be afraid that they would purposely be trying to recoup their upfront loss on the ticket by charging additional fees - like missed connections/rebooking fees. just a random thought...

Good luck on your travels

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