First-Ever 100,000 Point Offer For JetBlue Credit Card

by Gary Leff

I receive compensation for content and many links on this blog. Citibank is an advertising partner of this site, as is American Express, Chase, Barclays and Capital One. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners. I do not write about all credit cards that are available -- instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). Terms apply to the offers and benefits listed on this page.

Barclays is offering 100,000 points as an initial bonus for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Plus Card. The offer is also available for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Business Card.

  • 50,000 points after $1,000 spend and paying the annual fee within 90 days
  • 50,000 additional points after $6000 total spend within 12 months

To get the offer you can’t go directly to the card or Google the card. It’s available if you go to JetBlue.com first and click through to the products, and also available inflight; as a targeted offer over the phone; targeted by email and direct mail. (So for avoidance of doubt, I don’t have links to the offer and do not earn referral credit from applications for it.)

Update: offer link is here or just find it scrolling down on the JetBlue.com home page.

Both cards have similar earning and benefits.

  • Earning: 6x on JetBlue spend; 2x restaurants and groceries
  • Baggage: first checked bag free for primary cardmember and up to 3 other passengers on the same reservation booked with the card
  • Anniversary bonus: 5000 points after account anniversary
  • Elite status earning: Mosaic benefits after $50,000 in spend each calendar year
  • Redemption benefit: 10% rebate when spending points (and if you use family pooling, you can leverage this benefit spending points from all those accounts)
  • Vacation package benefit: $100 statement credit each year with $100 or more JetBlue Vacations package
  • Inflight savings: 50% off inflight purchases of food and beverages (when offered) on JetBlue flights

Beyond the bonus the play here for keeping and spending on the card is earning status with the airline through spend if you’re in the New York, Boston, or South Florida markets. Otherwise JetBlue is a transfer partner of all of the major bank currencies, and you can earn their points faster with Chase, Citi, or American Express cards. So if your goal is JetBlue points, you’re better off with a transferrable points bank card.

This is a very strong bonus though. You’ll generally get 1 to 1.6 cents per point in value redeeming for JetBlue flights. Mint (business class) flights will skew towards the lower end. I value a JetBlue point at around 1.25 cents apiece, so a 100,000 point offer means $1250 worth of travel, or $1151 net of each card’s annual fee. Those are strong bonuses. It’s not clear how long they will be around.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.

Pingbacks

Comments

  2. Jetblue points are only good for economy flights. Wanna fly their Mint product? this 100k i points couldn’t even get you a round trip flight on a transcon flights to the NY unless on special dates where you’re flying into New Jersey. 100K points sound nice but not really practical on JB premium seats and they have crappy airline partners to use it on.

  3. Mountain Man – if a card offered a sign up bonus of $1,000 cash, people would say it was great. This is much better than $1,000 cash for economy flights. It’s a strong bonus for those that fly Jet Blue (plenty of people).

  4. @Gary,

    Do you know when the offer is scheduled to go live on the JetBlue website? It doesn’t appear to be live as of this comment.

  6. ::sigh:: standard question – any recent data points about Barclays matching? Signed up for the business card two months ago

  9. The T&Cs mention you’re not eligible if you’ve had a card under this “program” before. Does “program” mean JetBlue Plus card or ANY JetBlue card?

  10. The terms (for the business card) state: “This offer may not be available to you if you already have a credit card account with Barclays.” What’s the correct interpretation of “may” here? Does it mean that they may deny the application? Or it means that may deny the bonus even after they approve the application and fulfill its terms?

  13. I cancelled my JetBlue card about a year after they switched from Amex to Barclays. I applied today and was approved. But be careful to use the correct link. They still show a 40k mile offer for the JB+ card.

Comments are closed.