Introduction
JetBlue is currently offering a generous promotion, where they’ll match (or more than match) your Virgin America points balance. A lot of people are taking advantage of this promotion, early today we reviewed the Barclaycard JetBlue Plus card. In this post we’ll look at if signing up for this card makes sense for those taking advantage of this promotion. We’re going to assume that people have received the maximum match bonus of 75,000 JetBlue points for the purposes of this post, but you should be able to follow along if you you will receive a smaller matched bonus. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with how much JetBlue points are worth.
Key Aspects Of Plus Card & This Promotion
There are a few key aspects of the Plus Card that are relevant to this promotion, here they are listed by why they are important.
- $99 annual fee. The annual fee on this card isn’t waived for the first year, so you will be stuck paying at least $99 for the card.
- 30,000 sign up bonus points. Requires only a $1,000 spend, more than makes up for the annual fee but it does mean you’ll have more points that need to be redeemed. This is important if you live in an area/city with limited JetBlue flights.
- 10% of redeemed points back. This basically gives you another 7,500 points (plus another 750 when those are redeemed). Obviously this applies to the sign up bonus as well, so would be worth 10,000+ points (basically accounting for the annual fee at bare minimum).
- 50% savings on in flight purchases. WiFi isn’t included in this discount, but pretty much everything else is. Makes food & beverages more affordable, nobody ever thinks they will make these purchases – but people often do.
- First checked bag free for you and up to three companions. Bags usually cost $20 and then another $35 for additional bags in their cheapest fare class. This benefit will save you money on the return ticket required for the promotion and any subsequent flights you take with JetBlue to use your points up.
- 6x points on JetBlue purchases. The promotion requires a return JetBlue flight to be taken, if you have the card you’ll be able to earn 6x points on this transaction. Plenty of cards earn 3x+ on travel and most people will be taking low cost return trips with JetBlue so this shouldn’t make a huge difference. If you’re looking at more expensive flights, it might help.
Our Verdict
Honestly this card gives you a lot of value add in this promotion, if there are two of you (e.g a couple) then it would make sense for at least one of you to get the card (remember Jetblue has family pooling) that way you could get the 10% back on all of the points between you, both get free baggage, take advantage of the 6x and also get a discount on in flight purchases. If you’re just rolling solo then I still think this card provides good value for those taking advantage of the promotion – but it’s a little less clear cut and probably depends on the fare classes you plan to travel, if you usually travel with checked in baggage etc etc.
Would love to hear other people’s thoughts for and against this card when thinking about it in relation to the Virgin America promotion.
Apparently ur not very good at making ur points. U said u could sign up for card and get points u need but I pointed out that this is not cost efficient since a credit pull is worth to most at least $200, add on the annual fee and ur at $299 for 30,000 points. Now y would anyone do that instead of 75,000 points for what I’m guessing is about the same price maybe less. Ur point of wasting a day or 2 is not a good one since I can pick what day to travel and where to travel to. I’ll gladly fly for half a day for what amount to over $1,000 in flights. I know I don’t make that kinda money at home. If u live in the US and can’t find use for these points then ur not playing this game right or don’t understand the rules we play by. Also find comical that u think u know more than the collective bloggers or feel that rest of us need to be warned that this is not a n amazing deal but u think $99 for 30,000 is a better deal
This is why I won’t be taking part in the promotion. Instead of paying for a flight and losing a day or more of my life, I can simply sign up for these credit cards, even with the annual fee, and collect as many points as I need for whenever I need to fly JetBlue.
Yeah except ur only getting 30,000 points for sign up where u can get 75,000 for the promotion. Don’t forget the card comes with a $99 annual fee that is not waived the first year. I could do the transfer and pay for a flight that’s a little over $150 round-trip and get 45,000 points more than I would get from sign up bonus. So I would be out $51 for the extra 45,000 points. Not too shabby.
I don’t disagree that it’s a good deal, but I think the way blogs are making this out to be the deal of the year is a bit disingenuous. There’s a full day that is lost, for example, and for many, JetBlue points may not even be that useful. They’ll do it just because many are shouting at how amazing the promotion is. Plus, they’ll transfer SPG or other flexible points to top up their VA account and may not even use those points for a long time.
All in all, it’s a good promotion for those whose schedules and airports allow them to make use of the points. Otherwise, it’s simply a waste of time and money.
But it is the deal of the year. 75,000 for a round trip flight. U said u could do the sign up but then u would spend $99 for only 30,000 points. For $150 I can get 75,000 points. If u did the sign up bonus but skip on the 75,000 promotion then ur a fool since u see value in 30,000 points for $99 and the credit hit but u won’t pay twice that for 75,000 points. To me the credit pull by itself is worth $200. I might not need the points today but I sure will need them at one point maybe 3 moths maybe 6 but when I need them I’ll be glad I have them.
Apparently, you don’t get my point – even if it’s the deal of the year, it doesn’t mean it’s an amazing deal. I have no intention of getting the credit card either, but you’re saying you have nothing better to do than spend a day or more flying. That’s fine for you, but that’s not true of a lot of people. Many folks have more interesting or important things to do.
The problem is a lot of people will be fooled into thinking this is some amazing promo and then look back and realize they have a lot of points they can’t necessarily use that cost them real money and time.
It’s a lot less of a deal if it’s a milage run, but great deal for those that can make use of the return flight. Either way it’s still a great offer.
Probably to soon to tell but is the bonus of 30K the most we can expect?
Not sure, there wasn’t massive bonuses on the AmEx card either so 30,000 seems generous already – but nothing saying they wouldn’t increase to 30k+