JetBlue & Barclaycard Partnership

The Intro

One of my predictions for 2015 was that Barclaycard would become the official credit card partner for JetBlue Airways. I was first alerted to this possibility by a comment made by Gary Leff from View From The Wing wrote awhile ago (I can’t remember the specific post), I then followed up with a few insiders that I know and there has been a lot of industry speculation as well.

The other thing I based this prediction on was the fact that it just makes sense. Barclaycard will lose their US Airways partnership this year, as that airline is merging with American Airlines (the unofficial official end date for this card is March 31st, but it wouldn’t be the first time a credit card company has extended).

This means they will have a lot of marketing budget left and a gaping hole in their airline inventory.Barclaycard does have a co-branded credit card partnerships with three other airlines: Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines & Lufthansa. But they would still be looking to replace US Airways.

The News

Yesterday I received a tip from a reader (thank you, David!) about a job posting on Linkedin from the official Barclaycard page. You can view that page here. Job title is (emphasis mine) “JetBlue Customer Marketing Barclaycard – US-DE-Wilmington” Here is the opening excerpt:

Lead the launch, activation, ongoing customer spend, engagement, and usage of JetBlue airline program

Keep in mind that this is on an official Barclaycard job listing on LinkedIn.

When

According to this Bloomberg article the American Express / JetBlue partnership will run until the end of 2015. After that date it looks like Barclaycard will take over the issuance of JetBlue cobranded credit cards (at least Barclaycard are so confident that they’ve starting hiring for a senior manager position for the product).

Final Thoughts

If (or when) Barclaycard does replace American Express it will be interesting to see what happens:

• Will existing American Express JetBlue customers keep their cards or be automatically product changed to the Barclaycard product?
• Will Barclaycard offer a higher than normal sign up bonus when the new card launches?
• Will American Express offer a higher sign up bonus before the switch to encourage customers to sign up? (ala Barclaycard with the US Airways card).
• Will this result in a different payment network as well? (Most likely, Barclaycard only credit card, the American Express Travelocity that runs on the AmEx payment network. The rest run on Visa or MasterCard)

My guess is that all American Express cards will transition to the new Barclaycard product and American Express won’t offer a higher sign up bonus to attract customers (doing this would really only make sense if American Express JetBlue customers stayed as such).

I’m pretty confident that current AmEx JetBlue cardholders will transition to the new Barclaycard product, in the advertisement the following is listed (emphasis mine):

Create activation strategy for new and converted accounts

In other guessing news, I’d be surprised if American Express kept their Costco partnership and expect some positive changes to the American Express platinum card (personal) in the near future.