JetBlue Just Introduced Surge Pricing to Its Checked Bag Fees

We’ve seen them all. New weight limits, new cabin restrictions on the number of allowed items, and even new time windows outside of which (usually, more than 24 hours before your flight) you’ll pay a little extra for your baggage.

JetBlue, however, has truly gone above and beyond with its newest idea for bag pricing. You thought time windows were bad? Wait until you hear about surge pricing, which seems likely to become the new industry standard before long.

Sadly, it’s exactly as it sounds. If your flight is scheduled to depart on what JetBlue now considers a “peak date,” your checked bag will cost more money, which can be an extra $5 for the first bag or $10 for the second bag.

JetBlue’s standard checked bag prices for off-peak flights are $45 for the first bag and $60 for the second bag (as long as you check your bags within 24 hours of your flight and are traveling within the US, Canada, Latin America, or the Caribbean, that is). If you do, however, fly under the same exact travel conditions but on a peak date, those bags will cost you respectively $50 and $70. Assuming you checked both bags, that’s an extra $15, which makes it around a 14% increase from the original total price.

For transatlantic flights, it gets even worse. During peak dates, when checking the bag within 24 hours of the flight, the first checked bag is $70, while the second one is $115. Off-peak pricing under the same circumstances, instead, is $65 for the first bag and $110 for the second one.

We can all agree, then, that traveling during what the airline considers “peak travel dates” is not ideal if you are planning to bring a checked bag with you. But if you know when those dates are, you can always try to avoid them to save a few bucks.

One trick to save on these wild fees, however, is checking your bags more than 24 hours before your flight. This way, you can snag a $10 discount on the fees for both your first and second bag.

These are JetBlue’s peak travel dates (the new peak-related baggage fees applied to those who booked their tickets on or after March 22, 2024):