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JetBlue contest dares Instagram addicts to delete their pics to fly free for a year

JetBlue contest dares Instagram addicts to delete their pics to fly free for a year

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Only three winners will be chosen

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Airlines offer special promotions and sales periodically, but JetBlue’s latest sweepstakes involves a bizarre stipulation: wipe your entire Instagram account and post a picture promoting the airline for a chance to win a free year of flights.

According to the official rules, all you have to do is post a photo with a hashtag using JetBlue’s template on a blank Instagram, and make your profile public so the people in the marketing department can see the entry before this Friday, March 8th. JetBlue doesn’t specifically say why your Instagram needs to be cleared, though it did note that you can archive your pictures rather than delete them entirely as long as your profile looks like a blank page. It also doesn’t say anything about activity on your Instagram story, so you can still continue to post there. You should know, however, that even if you’re one of the three selected winners, you’re still liable for individual taxes and fees on each “free” flight taken.

you’re still liable for taxes and fees

As TechCrunch notes, this contest is similar to the stunt the Fyre Festival pulled when it got a bunch of influencers to post an orange square on their pages to promote the event. Airline Instaspams are also all over the social network, with fake accounts asking users to repost images for a chance to win “free” (aka fake) flights, so it’s unclear why JetBlue thought this was a good way to combat or lessen those types of activities. It also doesn’t seem like JetBlue is doing this to promote Time Well Spent, per se, since it’s encouraging travelers to refill their blank Instagram pages with more travel photos should they win the sweepstakes.

It’s all pretty weird, but if you’ve been itching to partake in the movement to delete your social media accounts, you might as well go out with a chance to potentially win some free heavily discounted flights. Bon voyage.