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.
