Nov 21: Trip report : New York (JFK) to San Jose (SJC)

Had a training to attend in the bay area. As it turned out, the event was in the 'W' hotel in Newark, CA. My 'home' airport is Newark, NJ!  But I quickly found that there were actually no non-stops from Newark, NJ to San Jose (the closest to airport to the venue, though there were to SFO which is further away). I figured the Jetblue non-stop from JFK would make sense as I anyway would have to catch the flight directly after work (fairly close to JFK). My travel desk duly booked me on the 6.30 pm non-stop from JFK. 

Website 
The JetBlue website is OK - nothing remarkable. I went in and became a 'true blue' member online though I quickly realized that Jetblue ran a very tight frequent flyer program - with miles expiring within a year and my roundtrip barely getting a quarter of the points for a free flight. The website let me pick my seats - which is when I became aware of the so called "Even More Legroom" seats that they have. Basically, you pay $30 for 4 extra inches of legroom. Some sort of a premium economy. I picked one of those for the return flight (the red-eye) but not for the onward one. 

Pre-Flight 
JFK's Terminal 5 is JetBlue's home in New York and they have just finished remodeling it. Check-in was smooth. There is 'full-service' check-in for international destinations (like San Juan) and self-service machines + bag drop for domestic. The machine didn't recognize my trueblue number but accepted the confirmation number. I took the boarding card and my check-in bag to the bag drop where the bag tag was generated, stuck to the bag followed by a polite request to drop the bag on the belt. The agent printed another boarding card after he manually put in my trueblue number. Security check was a breeze as there weren't that many people. Terminal 5 looks very spacious with really high ceilings and large public-seating areas - with lots of food options also. 
By the time I chomped down a pizza, bought a newspaper and some water, they had already started boarding. As I walked in, the agent told me my seat had been changed to 1D (from row 25 or so). No complaints - It was a change for the better as I did have more room now and was right in front instead of almost at the back. 

The Flight 
 It was an A320 with pale brown leather seats and fairly cheerful interiors. We pushed back dot on time and the pilot then proceeded to do one of the most agressive taxis I have seen in any NYC area airport. It almost seemed like a NYC taxi on the tarmac. But it seemed well worth it as we got to the runway and were no 1 for takeoff - no mean feat in JFK in peak hour! We were airborne at 6.45 after pushing back just before 6.30. I must stay that is creditable. The last time I was at JFK, I had spent 90 minutes on the tarmac in a Virgin flight bound for London. 

Having 36 channels of DirecTV is a definite plus - must commend whoever thought of that at JetBlue. I got my daily fix of Larry Kudlow, Jon Stewart, Larry King and others at 32000 feet. Definitely helps pass time on a long flight like this one. They have XM radio as well - which is good. You either use your own headphones or rent one for a dollar. They served complimentary snacks (chips, cookies etc.) and beverages twice - and alcoholic beverages could be bought for 5 bucks. The stewardess was fairly efficient. 
Oddly enough, also got a couple of complementary, sample-size Arm and Hammer toothpaste packs towards the end of the flight. This was handed out not by the stewardess but by another guy. Not sure if this is some kind of new prioduct promotion strategy and, if yes, what the dynamics are. 

I managed to get some sleep towards the end. We landed in San Jose at about 9.50 local time - so about 6 hrs 20 minutes from pushback to touchdown. Overall, a fairly pleasant flight.
I don't know if this is now standard practice, but I got see this only because I was in row 1 : When the pilot wanted to use the restroom in front, the stewardess used one of the push-carts to block the aisle - and unblocked it only when the pilot was done and was back in the cockpit. Is this standard practice now?

The Return Flight
The return flight was a red-eye and was fairly uneventful. When I checked-in, I was given a middle-row seat in a non "ever more legroom" row. When I reminded them that I had an EML seat selected and paid for, they checked and (politely) claimed they didn't see any such selection. A couple of calls to my credit card companies confirmed that such a charge hadn't come in. Presumably, I thought I had completed the selection process when, in fact, I had perhaps missed the final 'confirm' button or something. So be careful though in this case I'll give JetBlue the benefit of doubt. The seat that I did get wasn't too bad and I managed to get a few useful winks.