JetBlue and Barclays have increased the rewards on their $499 annual fee JetBlue Premier World Elite Mastercard, without taking anything away or increasing its cost.
This is the card that comes with access to its lounges. JetBlue’s New York lounge opened in December. Boston opens this summer. At just 8,000 and 11,000 square feet these spaces are small, and so far the food game is weak but JFK is an attractive lounge.
They are adding:
- Earn a companion pass (redeem for up to $500 in statement credits) after $15,000 spend in a calendar year and an additional companion pass (redeem for up to $1,500 in statement credits) after $75,000 in calendar year spend. When you book and pay for the companion’s trip on your reservation using the card and apply the pass, you receive a statement credit after completing travel.
- 25-Tile bonus towards status after the beginning of each calendar year (halfway to first-tier Mosaic 1).
- Earn up to $300 in annual statement credits when using the card to pay for hotels, car rentals, cruises through TrueBlue Travel (no minimum purchase, transactions get rebated up to $300 annually which is really valuable, it’s a ‘real’ $300 in travel).
- 15% Redemption Rebate on award flights on both JetBlue and its partner airlines. What we saw with Delta, more or less, when they introduced lower award pricing for cardmembers was that eventually points prices just rose for everyone else.
- ClassPass credits as a classic mechant-funded offer with up to 14 monthly credits for fitness classes and experiences at studios, spas, salons, and gyms.
What I’m looking forward to is seeing whether JetBlue, which is exploring selling itself, gets acquired. Poor Barclays, which just lost sharing the American Airlines AAdvantage co-brand card, would lose its JetBlue card, too. However JetBlue’s lounges would become part of larger networks.
Even Southwest is committed to a Honolulu lounge and likely to add Dallas and has signed for Austin.
JetBlue’s loyalty program – and its premium credit card – would become more valuable as part of United, American, or Alaska Airlines though not necessarily as part of Southwest.
@ Gary — Could these “companion passes” simply be described as “buy two tickets and get $500/$1,500 back”? Or, am I missing something?
What if they just…let Plus cardholders get the SUB?
Incredibly novel idea
Just to clarify regarding the 15% rebate… JetBlue cards offer a 10% rebate on award tickets as a standard benefit. It functions differently than the Delta 15% discount and the newly introduced United 10% discount. For JetBlue, sometime after the flight has taken place they will issue a 10% rebate. With the premium card you are getting a larger rebate than the plus or business cards.
@Gene – yes, basically
Eh, still pretty weak, unless you travel via JFK T5 often and can use their new lounge regularly.