Condor is one of the better Alaska Airlines partners outside of oneworld, often making business class award space available at reasonable prices. Now the German airline has partnered up with JetBlue as well – you can earn and redeem JetBlue points traveling with Condor. That’s good for both airlines.

JetBlue is undersized, and the Biden administration blocked them from aquiring Spirit Airlines and from partnering closely with American. They are building a United partnership, but need to be able to sell tickets with airlines that take their customers far beyond their own route network, and to be competitive their frequent flyer program needs to give members those options too (this is crucial to selling lucrative credit cards). Even Southwest is learning about the need to partner for this

Condor gives JetBlue customers access to Europe that they do not offer themselves. Meanwhile, JetBlue provides quite a bit of U.S. connectivity for Condor’s flights, doing for Condor in New York and Boston what Alaska does for them in Seattle, San Francisco, Anchorage, Los Angeles and Portland.

• Condor has actually gotten pretty good for transatlantic business class. Their A330neos offer a good experience, while their old 767s did not.

• And Condor needs help. For decades Lufthansa was required to let them sell connection beyond Frankfurt at favorable rates, as a bulwark against that larger airline’s monopoly there.

• European competition authorities were going to require this relationship to continue, given how anti-competitive Lufthansa’s joint venture with United and Air Canada is, but will now no longer do so.

As a result of all of this, Condor doesn’t just provide cheap transatlantic flights, serving Frankfurt to:

• New York JFK
  
• Boston
  
• Miami
  
• San Francisco
  
• Seattle
  
• Los Angeles
  
• Portland
  
• Anchorage

They also offer short haul connections beyond Frankfurt to paris, Berlin, Rome, Hamburg, Munich, Milan, Prague, Vienna and Zurich as well.

There’s a number of other seasonal routes as well and they’re adding to their schedule, for instance they’ll fly to Venice, Barcelona and Bucharest come summer 2026. And now you can redeem JetBlue flights this way.

While JetBlue doesn’t public partner business class pricing, East Coast – Frankfurt non-stop is coming up at just 54,000 points each way for business class which is fantastic.

Connections and longer flights appear to cost more, with Seattle to Mallorca pricing at 52,500 points one-way in economy.

JetBlue East Coast – Europe business class, at pricing similar to what Alaska charges, is a big win for TrueBlue members as well as Amex, Citi and Chase cardmembers who have a new redemption options for their points transfers.