Good morning everyone. The points and miles blogosphere is abuzz about the latest Points Match offer from JetBlue. I sent an email with my Virgin America and JetBlue account details to JetBlue on Saturday morning (7:38am PT) and eagerly awaited a response from JetBlue.
That response came Monday afternoon (3:37pm PT) and now I just needed to book and take a round trip JetBlue flight before August 31, 2016 to receive the points match bonus.
Honestly, I had a bit of a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory golden ticket and Harry Potter acceptance letter moment for a second, then I calmed down and looked for flights.
If you have total flexibility over your schedule, you can find round trip JetBlue flights for under $100. Since I don’t want to take any more days off work, I looked for a quick weekend trip before August 31, 2016. I found a same day round trip flight from SFO to LAS on July 16, 2016. When I booked the flight last night, the price was *only* $146. Unfortunately, the price has gone up to $192 as of this morning.
What I find really interesting is that JetBlue Mosaic Members (myself included) do not get complimentary “Even More Space” seats. Luckily, for $25 or a mere 300 JetBlue miles, you can purchase an “Even More Space” seat.
That comes out to a 8.33 cents per mile (CPM) when redeeming JetBlue miles for seat assignments. Normally I wouldn’t spend money on a seat assignment, but when I am expecting a big miles bonus from JetBlue, all logic goes out the window.
I had 856 JetBlue miles and then I spent 600 JetBlue miles on seat assignments. As an aside, I like JetBlue’s numbering at the top of the page: 1… 2… 6.
Since my SFO-LAS JetBlue flight leaves at 2:00pm, I am going to hang out in the SFO Centurion Lounge for a few hours and get some food and drinks. I will be at the lounge from 11:00am to 1:30pm.
Since my LAS-SFO flight leaves at 7:55pm, I have 4 hours to chill in Las Vegas. Since that is not enough time to see a Vegas show, I will hang out in the LAS Centurion Lounge for a few hours and get some food and drinks. I will be at the lounge from 4:00pm to 7:30pm.
If anyone is interested in joining me at the lounges, please let me know and I can reach out to my contacts at the SFO and LAS lounges to reserve a few tables together. If no one is interested, I will just sit in the corner of the lounge and cry because I have no friends watch TV on my laptop.
FYI, here some pics from my last 2 Centurion Lounge meetups:
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
Hey Grant,
This promo sounds really good, but I don’t have any Elevate miles at all. I only have 4000 SPG points. I have like 125K AMEX MR points and about 9K Citi Thank You points. I just can’t see a way to get to 50K Elevate points to make this happen that make sense. Can you offer an opinion?
You can transfer AMEX MR to Elevate with a 2:1 ratio which isn’t a great deal given the valuation of MR points at 1.9c (you’re cutting the value at least by 40%). But if you get a lot of value out of Jetblue points then it may still be a worthy tradeoff. Since if you use 20002 MR points for 10001 Elevate points you can get 30000 Jetblue points.
If we value each point as the following MR = 1.9c, Elevate = 2.1c and Jetblue = 1.4c, then you still come out ahead by $250, but you still need to buy a roundtrip flight on Jetblue which is between $100-200. So in the end you make about $50-$150 from the exchange.
Great analysis, Carrie!
Hmm, you don’t need to max out this promo if it will cause you to deplete all your transferable points. I might pass on the offer if you have better uses for the points.
I hate to pass this up, but the fact is I don’t have plans to fly on JetBlue or Virgin America and the routes are very limited from my area. I think you’re right. Better save my MR, SPG, TY points for other options.
Yes, there might be other points matching opportunities in the future. Maybe one of those will work better for you.
Hey Brant,
You can go Amex MR to Virgin America, at a terrible rate, but it does exist. At a transfer rate of 2 Amex MR to 1 Virgin America.
Not sure if it was necessarily worth it. But I purchased 30,000 SPG points and transferred them to my Virgin America account. It cost 2.45cpp with the 30% off deal that’s currently running. By doing the transfer and adding the 10k SPG I already had, I get 1.25 bonus multiplier *40k SPG = 50k Virgin Elevate points. Thoughts anyone?
How much did 30,000 SPG points cost? Have you looked for cheap JetBlue flights?
With so many other offers and opportunities from the past drying up, sometimes even a fools paradise looks pretty good. With such a narrow window to advantage this offer and accumulate Elevate miles through credit card bonus or other means it seems penny wise and pound foolish to rush in now just to make big JetBlue and Virgin America miles which are not particularly mainstream since it would siphon off extremely valuable and flexible MR, SPG, TY points. Thanks for everyone’s input here. I’ll sit tight with my piggy bank.
Good decision Brant. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing :)
Cost $735.
How did you get 2 checked bags for free?
I believe it is a benefit of being a JetBlue Mosaic member (status match from Virgin America Gold).
Hi Grant,
I sent mine to JetBlue late Tuesday so hope I will get response soon. Is JetBlue point good for short trip?
I think JetBlue points have a fixed value, so cheap flights cost less points. Hopefully you hear back from JetBlue soon.
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