As we’ve known for nearly a year now, the new jetBlue credit card will be issued & managed by Barclaycard. Existing American Express cardholders will be transitioned to the new card March 21st, 2016 (read that link for more information regarding the switch). Thanks to View From The Wing, we now know what the personal & business cards will look like. You can find out reviews below, we’ve also listed any divations from the American Express card in brackets).
Contents
Personal Card Review
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 4x points per dollar spent on jetBlue purchases (previously 2x points)
- 2x points per dollar spent on restaurants and groceries (previously 1x point)
- 1x points per dollar spent on all other purchases
- Annual fee of $40
- 5% uncapped rebate on all points you redeem (not previously offered)
- No foreign transaction fees (previously 2.7%)
- 50% savings on jetBlue inflight purchases (meals, movies & drinks)
- $50 statement credit each & every time you book a jetBlue vacation
- Mastercard World Elite Benefits (previously standard American Express benefits)
- If you’re transitioned from American Express you’ll also receive a $100 one time companion discount when you spend $500 with the new card by June 30th.
Business Card Review
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 6x points per dollar spent on jetBlue purchases (previously 2x points)
- 2x points per dollar spent on restaurants and office supply stores (previously 1x point)
- 1x points per dollar spent on all other purchases
- 10% uncapped rebate on all points you redeem (not previously offered)
- 5,000 anniversary points on card renewal (not previously offered)
- Annual fee of $99 (previously $40)
- No foreign transaction fees (previously 2.7%)
- Free checked bag for you and up to three travelling companions when you use your jetBlue card to book a jetBlue flight
- Mastercard World Elite Benefits (previously standard American Express benefits)
How Much Are jetBlue Points Worth?
Redemption of jetBlue points are tied to the cash value of a ticket and other factors. The range you can get is between 0.97¢ and 1.89¢ per point, with an average of 1.41¢ per point. Wandering Armean has a good post (although a bit dated now, the information itself is still spot on from my limited research) that I’d strongly recommend reading to understand better.
F.A.Q
Q: I currently have the American Express version of the card, should I cancel my card before the transition so I can get the bonus again?Â
A: One of the things we still don’t know about either of these cards is what the sign up bonus will be, if any. Barclaycard looks to have aggressively improved the benefits on both cards, that could mean they’ll do the same with the sign up bonus or they could lower the bonus to pay for the new benefits. American Express aren’t letting jetBlue cardholders product change (or targeted bonuses for doing so like they are with Costco [Read: Our full review of the new Costco credit cards]). Personally I’d recommend waiting until we know what sign up bonus Barclaycard will offer before cancelling the current card.
Q: Will jetBlue stop being an American Express transfer partner?
A: It’s only possible to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to jetBlue, no other flexible points transfer there. It’s possible that American Express will lose this option when the card is officially transitioned to Barclaycard, but we don’t have any official information anyway. This isn’t a great transfer rate as it’s 1:0.8 anyway and American Express haven’t offered a transfer bonus in a long time now.
Our Verdict
Obviously these new cards are significantly better than those offered by American Express (it could be argued that the business card isn’t better due to the annual fee increase, but the 5,000 anniversary points and 10% rebate more than covers the $59 increase in annual fee as long as you value your jetBlue points at slightly more than 1¢ a piece or redeem points).
The real question will be what sort of sign up bonus Barclaycard launches with these cards, I doubt we’ll see a 50,000 point bonus but 30,000 or 40,000 wouldn’t terribly surprise me. Even at 20,000 points this would be a good option for those with paid flights with jetBlue.
