Barclaycard jetBlue Rewards Mastercard Reviews [Personal & Business]

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).

jetblue mastercard

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? 

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.

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Dan
Dan (@guest_264279)
June 1, 2016 11:44

By the way, the $100 coupon that I got by letting the Jet Blue AmEx card transition to the Barclaycard Mastercard worked better than expected. It did take about 3 weeks (slightly longer than promised) to get the coupon e-mailed to me after I met the $500 minimum spend (thanks Nationwide Visa Buxx for helping with that). The e-mail included a special link to buy tickets that automatically includes the coupon in your purchase.

It wasn’t clear to me from the terms, but all I needed to use the coupon was a total base fare of $100 for the two tickets combined. So, I used it to buy 2 one-way tickets that cost $78 each base fare (plus $20 each taxes and fees). My total was $188.70, minus the $100 coupon = $88.70. Then I bought the return trip separately with points.

Note, I did have to pay the $40 annual fee (I called, they wouldn’t waive it).

steveL
steveL (@guest_249971)
April 22, 2016 21:20

Horrible customer service during transition. We had the JetBlue AMEX for over 10 years – loved the card and the customer service. Since switching to BARCLAY it has been a disaster – such a disappointment. Our first statement from BARCLAY indicated that our payment was overdue (what??). I can only imagine how many others switched over from the old JetBlue Card just paid these fees without noticing. We called (terrible automated system that disconnected my wife 3 times) and spoke to a customer representatives who agreed to waive the fees (suggesting this was a big favor). We arranged online payment – only to find that our card was frozen for delinquent payment for an additional 48hrs…. After calling back all we got was a polite – ‘oh well’….. While the benefits of the card may look nice – I would stay away from BARCLAY.

Ashwin Ramesh
Ashwin Ramesh (@guest_222169)
February 3, 2016 15:03

Wow the personal card doesn’t even include a free bag.

Jan B
Jan B (@guest_222087)
February 3, 2016 10:15

Wow, your article is so timely. Was just posting questions at FT.

I was just charged the AMEX JB AF.

So, you advise wait on applying for this card on the Barclay side? So worried about losing my $22K CL on the Amex side, not sure what to do.

I guess the optimum outcome would be to keep that $22K on the AMEX side by transferring the CL portion to other AMEX cards and then cancel my Aviator putting the CL over to the Wyndham and then hope my Barclay JB would have the nice new bonus and get it approved through reconsideration later. Is that too risky/complicated? Thanks for reply.

DrForce
DrForce (@guest_222080)
February 3, 2016 09:36

What butt ugly card! I might pass out just by looking at it

Adam
Adam (@guest_222272)
February 3, 2016 20:27

yeah I personally find the design of the new B6 card not bad! I liked the old AMEX version’s design a bit better.

I will say tho, ironically the new design looks like a poor mans version of Etihad (maybe Barclay really wanted to woo EY away from Citi but could only muster up B6 from AMEX) and this is doubly funny cause JetBlue actually has a partnership w/Emirates lol.

plus, the EK CC (only for the UAE market) uses the AMEX network. EK also has a partnership w/SPG program in the UAE which once again is on AMEX as well.

Adam
Adam (@guest_222073)
February 3, 2016 09:07

AMEX used to offer this card w/20k signup bonus. AX is used to offering higher bonus offers compared to other card issuers esp Barclay. not sure if BC will match or even surpass (upto 50k) on a co-brand like JetBlue. very doubtful but would love to be proven wrong.

then again dont rly care much for trueblue points. they are not something I need as part of my armory. it might be cool to fly jet mosaic mint transcon from LA-JFK but since I’m based in CST, it’ll be rare for me to come up w/trips like that. not to mention B6 often discounts that route even in Mint class. I think around Dec/holiday time they had a crazy $200 RT sale. so I mean you could use points to experience it but since they are so cheap, why bother? besides using points doesnt even count towards status or earning FFP either, right? even tho you still kinda sorta end up paying ‘sticker’ price for your flight.

jake
jake (@guest_222285)
February 3, 2016 21:03

What is CST?