JetBlue attempted a cool PR move this morning by launching its own board game on Amazon.com. The idea is that you and other players gather pieces representing all the items needed to take a trip, and the first person to fill his or her board gets a free ticket on JetBlue.
Except it’s an actual free ticket, good just about anywhere JetBlue flies during 2018. Considering the board game only cost $19.99, that is an awesome deal.
Or it would have been had any board games actually been available for sale. Reviews on the site, now just 30 minutes after it was supposed to go live, suggest no games were ever available for sale. It’s already sold out and only available for resellers, one of whom wants $10,000 plus shipping. (What, you think shipping is supposed to be free?) I’ve also seen links showing it’s available for $39.07 on Prime, but after clicking through it’s still unavailable.
This release appears terribly botched, with a generous offer that probably saw tons of demand for limited supply. And now those early buyers are flipping it at a higher price. One reviewer even plugs his bot network, claiming he’s the one who took all the stock and trying to sell the bot to other resellers interested in doing the same. Whether true or not, it’s probably not the type of publicity that JetBlue wanted.
Yikes.
Amazon.com now claims it will be back in stock on December 18, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Maybe next time JetBlue can consider a different option, like handing out board games such as bingo games free to play to passengers traveling for the holidays, and letting them wake up on Christmas morning to the surprise of a free ticket under the tree. That might see less disappointment than advertising a ridiculously generous deal on one of the internet’s largest shopping websites. Just sayin’.
