Really. What aspect of the project do you find most appealing? Standing on line, seeing the inside of many airports and sometimes the same ones many times, negotiating airport security, eating unhealthy food from airport concessionaires, not getting any exercise, constantly being concerned about your schedule?
But I am looking forward to the incredible web page which I am sure Dustin will create based on the miserable experience.
Yeah, sure. Might beat sitting in line in traffic; seeing the inside of just one office building many, many times; eating unhealthy food because you're too lazy to cook good stuff; not getting any exercise; and constantly being concerned about your schedule; and doing this all in the same locale you spend every day of your life in.
I mean: it's an adventure. There may be some miserable bits, but if you're spending $600 and traveling around the US and not having some kinds of fun, not learning something new, then you're probably going out of your way to fail.
Even if the whole experience IS miserable, you're going to learn a lot about your ability to persevere.
Yeah, but you have a choice for most of those things on a day-to-day basis. Whereas when you travel a schedule like this, your options for misery mitigation are severely limited.
I'm a HUGE fan of travel and getting out an experiencing the world. But this isn't that.
And he doesn't have a choice here? In everyday life you make a sacrifice to step away from that optimized, possibly terrible schedule. If DC really just cannot possibly stand to perform this schedule any more he can revert to just traveling normally and freely whenever he wants.
The only loss is the bragging rights to having visited every Jet Blue city in a month. His choice.
The challenge and adventure. How many people can say they've been to 43 cities in a month?
It may well be a miserable way to spend a month, but I think it's cool that someone is trying. Let me put it this way: I'd rather be the one traveling the planet than the internet cynic talking about how miserable he will be.
I recently read a book called "An Absolutely Outrageous Adventure" written by two travel mates who visited every WHO recognized country in the world in one year.
It was one of the worst books I've ever read because most of their experiences revolved around airport hopping from country to country.
Give me a month in any given country and I'll be satisfied. It takes that long just to settle in and learn enough culture not to look ignorant.
I will say that 30 days on a plane does increase your chances of joining the mile high club though...(I digress)
Top travel choices for next destination - Argentina, Thailand, Bolivia.
Going to 43 cities in a month is reasonably easy (for a reasonably generous definition of "city") if you go on a road trip. You'd almost certainly see a lot more, and have a lot more fun, if you set out to visit the 43 largest cities in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by... ) in one month.
On the downside you'd also spend a bunch more money, and you wouldn't get the warm fuzzy feeling that only comes from taking maximum advantage of a cheap offer.
he's traveling only in the sense that his body will be transported many miles. seeing the inside of airports and planes for a month doesn't strike me as being worth the cost, monetary, physiological, or psychological.
Paul, he's not traveling in the normal sense of the word. If he was visiting 43 cities in, say, 90 days, he would actualyl get to experience each city for at least 1 full day/night. And yeah, that would be cool.
But what he's doing here is just going from airport to airport, with pretty much no time to do anything except worry about catching the next flight. He's not going to get a chance to even leave the airport, save maybe once or twice. It's going to be horrible, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs a serious reality check.
Pick anybody else taking those same 30 days off work, and chances are they're going to be enjoying themselves more than these kids.
As it happens, I'll probably overlap with them for the 30 days they're in the air. During which time I'll hike the Inca Trail, take a banana boat down the Amazon, and otherwise hitchike, surf and dirtbag my way from Peru northwards toward Columbia.
All for about the same amount of money.
So yeah, if you have a month to blow and a grand to do it with, you could certainly have a lot better time than these guys. That said, I wish them luck.
I think a more exciting approach to life would be to pick a handful of the cities, and spend some time enjoying each of them. Airports are not that interesting.
In that you're pointing out that it's ludicrous to spend all that time in airports when life in each of those cities is much more interesting and could be better explored in pretty much any other way possible, yeah, I think it is pretty funny.
I think it's painfully obvious that you aren't challenging the hackish nature of the project, but the actual project itself. So, people who don't seem to get that aren't getting the "joke".
So your contention is that since the premise is so lame, the "joke" is that it raises awareness about what it means to actually visit a place?
In the same sense that the presumably unintentional misunderstanding of irony in the song Ironic can be spun to actually be a (supposed) clever joke about irony.
I'm not talking about the "experiment", I'm talking about the guy who got all uppity about you not being able to enjoy life. I was saying he should be taking your comment (somewhat) in jest.
I didn't mean to get "all uppity". If it sounded that way it's because I sarcastically borrowed some of mhb's wording to make my point. I was just a little surprised that the top comment on HN is "...completely miserable way to waste a month" instead of "hey, this isn't for me, but it's an interesting idea."
There's a difference between taking advantage of a bargain and being a glutton.
83 segments in 30 days just to see how many you can do? Sounds foolish and selfish (How many others with $599 passes won't be able to get the seats they need because of you?)
Imagine how much fun you could have if you did this sensibly.
Sure, you can go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and eat until you vomit, but why would you?
I believe that in order to qualify for the seat, you have to make your reservations ahead of time. You don't just show up, then get your seat stolen out form under you, and return home in tears.
Furthermore, you could apply this to virtually anything. Ever been to an all-you-can-eat buffet? Every shrimp you eat is a shrimp that some poor retiree won't get to eat.
Doesn't matter. The seat was still taken by someone who really didn't need it.
Every shrimp you eat is a shrimp that some poor retiree won't get to eat
Illogical analogy. The number of seats is limited. The number of shrimp (for all intents and purposes) is unlimited. Also, the shrimp are not distinctive; that is, any one shrimp is pretty much as the same as any other. The seats are distinctive per flight (a seat on Flight 123 is not the same thing as a seat on Flight 567).
Lots of people made good faith purchases of these $599 passes for legitimate travel, and some of them will be disappointed because others want to game the system simply to see how far they could go with it. Not cool.
You monster.
I hope that's a joke (even though I don't get it).
The number of seats is limited. The number of shrimp (for all intents and purposes) is unlimited.
Actually, the opposite is more precisely true. The marginal cost putting one more person on a plane is minimal, compared to the fixed cost of the flight. The marginal cost of one more shrimp correlates more closely with the total cost of shrimp.
It is up to individual consumers to make sure other consumers get a good deal?
Of course not. Let me ask a different question.
At what point do you decouple the human element from the business element?
Obviously, there is no right answer. It's everyone's judgement call. I would imagine someone who started a business (tipjoy) based upon the goodwill of others wouldn't do much decoupling at all.
OP is clearly (and admittedly) abusing the system for the sake of abusing it with no regard to how his actions affect others. This isn't clever hacking, it's just gauche.
I'd feel differently if he used his pass to have a great month and share his experience with others who don't have that opportunity. His current plan doesn't do any of that. It's a blown opportunity just to maximize something that doesn't matter. What a pity.
I imagine the airline anticipated people doing this, and they are more than happy to have the publicity. (My guess is they are flying a bunch of empty seats lately because of the economy, so the marginal cost is very small.)
My guess is they are flying a bunch of empty seats lately because of the economy
Not because of the economy, but because September is notoriously slow. This was a great idea to fill those seats and will probably fill them all.
Little solace to the poor schmuck who bought a pass to make a few flights this month but couldn't find seats because of others flying 3 times a day just for the heck of it.
You have absolutely no information to base this statement upon.
There are plenty of seats on all the flights we have looked at. September is just an empty month for airlines. We are not utilizing some scarce important resource, which is what you are incorrectly suggesting.
People do realize that most airlines offer "round the world" passes designed for this type of thing right?
I get that it's not as cheap as jetblue's promotion, but seriously, if you really want to spend 30 days in airports, you may as well get your passport stamped!
The city that was the most positive surprise was probably Honolulu. The people were even friendler than I had expected, the city was the cleanest of them all and I really liked the way they had combined beach- and "city"-life.
Not that this isn't interesting, but aren't you supposed to be, you know, running a startup?
EDIT: Now that I'm poking around a little, I don't see any reference to a startup on any of your sites or anything, but I thought you had one (perhaps Frogmetrics?). Was I mistaken?
Dustin... awesome. Has anybody else done something like this? This could be like a "Supersize" movie, but about the perils of travel. Film it! And @#$%... make sure to stretch regularly.
I'm suddenly reminded of the Eggers novel "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" wherein the characters go on a week-long international journey trying to give away an inherited sum of money.
Sounds like a great experiment. I'm especially interested to see if these bizarre flights trigger any inquiry by authorities.
Has anybody here looked into the health effects of spending 30 days in a low air pressure environment? Even flight attendants don't spend this much time on a plane.
Supposedly airplane cabins are kept at the equivalent of about 6000 ft above sea level, which would make a month on a plane only a little worse for you than moving to Denver.
flying is terrible for the environment. i'm all for having a good time and doing neat projects, but this one seems extraordinarily ignorant and harmful.
Yes. Flying is very different in this respect from cars/trains:
> "Half of the
work done by a plane goes into staying up; the other half goes into keeping
going."
therefore:
> "The plane was going anyway, so my flying was energy-neutral."
> This is false for two reasons. First, your extra weight on the plane
requires extra energy to be consumed in keeping you up. Second, airlines
respond to demand by flying more planes.
That Southwest airlines jet where half the people weren't onboard? That just got converted into (200 seats * 200lbs lardass Americans) = 40,000 lbs. of roses, prawns and couriered legal documents.
The fact that you're not farting into a foam cushion doesn't matter to the operator or the environment. It just means less cattle are in the boxcar.
Here's how the problem is presented: more people want to fly, but they like fresh flowers, fresh food and, more than this, fast package delivery. Your girlfriend who swears she's helping the environment by insisting on organically-farmed New Zealand lamb? Your dad who overnights parts for his biodiesel conversion? Your mom who wants domestic roses fertilized with only the freshest of cow shit? Yeah, they're dumping hydrocarbons into the atmosphere with every dollar spent.
Fuel on a 747-200 burns at ~23,700 lbs./hr. during cruise flight, more during taxi operations.
Pounds. Flight. More during taxi. You know what taxi operations are, right? Where you're waiting on the tarmac? Happens a lot, doesn't it?
Cargo gets consolidated per air carrier for environmental and operational cost purposes. It just does.
The reason why more empty seats equate to less environmental damage (at least in my mind) is that you're staying at home instead of using the extra energy to get to the airport. Those planes will keep doing what they're doing, no matter what, unless you refine your behavior.
Worried about carbon? Worried about environmental impact? Buy local only. Cut down on time in cars/taxis. Ride a motorcycle. Eat less. Drink tap water instead of anything else. Grow your own food.
Otherwise, do what I do, stick your fingers in your ears, say "lalalalala" and enjoy living in the first world.
i'm also an AYCJ pass-holder. i'm a bit more tied down due to work, but this seemed like something where collaborating would definitely help everyone make the most of it. i created a facebook group because it seemed like the lowest barrier to entry ( http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123309380809 ), but if anyone else has other ways of discussing/sharing, post them here. http://wherewejet.com/ looks like they'll be updating, but i was hoping for something social.
You may only book one flight per city per day; if a violation of this policy is found, JetBlue will honor only the last booking made and cancel the customer's other bookings from that city on that day.
> cancel the customer's other bookings from that city on that day.
Means you can't fly out of a city, fly back, then fly out again. Also, you can't double book yourself out of a given city and then choose which flight you want to take.
I think he's going to get stung on the $100 cancellation/no-show fee:
> Changes or cancellations of flight bookings made after 11:59 p.m. MDT three days prior to the flight's scheduled departure will incur a $100 change/cancel fee. "No shows" for flights will incur a $100 fee, with Pass suspension until fee is paid.
Miss one connecting flight (e.g., due to an overnight delay) and they could be looking at $300 in cancellation fees.
I stuck in airport for more than 30 hours just from SFO to UVa. How do you expect all the airlines to have freemium model with so much delay and flight canceling? (United has extra leg space option, but what if your flight canceled?)
I hope they're buying carbon offsets so they won't feel bad. I also hope someone will now explain why carbon offsets don't actually make it up, so then they will feel bad twice.
