JetBlue TrueBlue - Rate JetBlue TrueBlue

We are going to review JetBlue True Blue in the October issue of InsideFlyer magazine and would like your input.

If you would like to participate, please post your response in the thread with the pros and cons of membership in True Blue and grade the program from A to F (A being the highest grade). You can include a plus or minus with the rating.

You can also respond directly to me at dmankell@insideflyer.com.
Thank you!

Here's the pro:


TrueBlue lets you book one-way award tickets


I will let others fill in the cons. :)

Partner Earning - C. Only real partner is the AmEx card. Points can also be earned through an energy partner (unclear what the cost is) or cruises.
Flight Earning - C. Only real value is if you can always book online. If not, you have to fly a LOT to get to a reward flight.
Flight Redemption Availability - A-. Availability is actually generally pretty good.
Flight Redemption "Price" - A. Very straightforward redemption rules and only a single "class" of rewards system-wide makes it easy to understand and use. Also, the ability to use the rewards as 2x one-ways is very nice.
Flight Partner Redemption - F. There is none.
Non-Flight Partner Redemption - F. There is none that I'm aware of (hotels, car rental, merchandise, etc.)
Point Expiration - F. They have the most customer-unfriendly policy of any program I'm familiar with. It prevents a customer from saving up points for future redemptions. Yes, the AmEx card provides some assistance on this front, but an occasional flier (1-2x annually) can never earn enough points for a free ticket in a cost-effective manner.
Elite Program - F. There is none. Excepting USAir, the elite program is a great way to accelerate point earnings with other carriers, and this is missing with JetBlue. Ditto for security access in some airports.
Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - D+. There are very few. One great promo from May keeps them alive here, but otherwise not much out there for new routes, partners or anything similar.

Overall - C-. There are a lot of good things about the program for people who can work within the rules that JetBlue operates under, but it is not a FF program for the casual passenger and only barely is useful for the very frequent flier.

I would rate this FF program the worst out of all of the carries (legacy or LLC) because of their stingiest earning and redeeming policies as far as ways to earn/usage. Don't forget that your points are in a rolling 12 month period so if you flew about 80 points in the whole month of July and you don't fly again until the following year in August, those 80 points go bye bye. Yes you can get an AMEX card to fulfill the 100 pts and a free flight but the last thing I want to do is to carry another credit card.

I wish that JetBlue would be part of *A (only because Lufthansa has a stake in JetBlue) and would have a similar FF program system like Frontier. If JetBlue was in *A (or Skyteam), I certainly would fly JetBlue way more often then now (especially since they fly out of LGB which is only 5 miles from me).

I do agree that a lot of the FF programs are degrading with each and every day passes on (USAir with their elmination of elite miles, UA and US policy of the elmination of the 500-mile min, Revamped flight award charts on several other airlines, WN's revamped structure on availability to get RR tickets, etc). However at least a lot of the legacy airlines (although diminishing) will give you certain perks that JetBlue makes is completely impossible (elite status, preferred seating, bonus miles as an elite, possible first class upgrades, free international tickets on other airlines that you don't have FF miles programs on (ex. free flights on ANA as a UA M+ member), etc.

I don't even think it's a FF program for any traveler from the casual passenger to the frequent flier. For the frequent flyer, there are not enough areas that JetBlue flys to that makes the FF program useful especially with their point expiration policy (WN, as bad as theirs is, even wins out because they do fly to enough cities to makes theirs work decently). For the casual flier, unless you make 5 RT flights from LGB to the east coast, they wouldn't have enough to get a free ticket.

This is one FF program that needs to be completely started from scratch IMHO because I think this is the one airline that would improve business very significantly if they have a better FF program. I think they need to do the following

- Partner Earning: involve more partners outside of the Amex care (especially car and hotel partners)
- Flight Earning: change it to a mileage system instead of the point system only if you put in a system that will award the frequent flyers more (elites get the same sort of bonus miles as most legacy carriers). Otherwise, the point system will be fine as long as you can get 2x points on online booking OR online check-in.
- Flight Redemption Availability: N/A for me because I never have enough points to find out how good the availability is for a free ticket (what's the point if I don't have enough points to claim a free ticket)
- Fight Redemption "Price" - N/A
- Flight Partner Redemption: Again, have JetBlue join *A since Lufthansa already has a stake in JetBlue anyway. One can only ask and dream right :). Hence I prefer the mileage earning system.
- Non-Flight Partner Redemption: this should involve redemption rewards for other things then flights (car rentals, hotels, cruises, etc)
- Point Expiration: Use the same policies as the legacy carriers where your points/miles only expire with 18 months of account inactivity.
- Elite Program: See sbm12's comment without the need of first class (although that would be very nice to have for elites and a big reason why frequent flyers have status in the first place).

As always YNMV.

Grade: F+ (it's not an F because at least you can book one-way award tickets)

sbm12, as always I respect your analysis. You are one of the few on here who takes the time to put concise points into your posts.

Allow me to respond to some of your comments which I feel are not as accurate. Your grade of C is very fair, but I would bump it up to a C+/B- based on the following:

Partner Earning - Not only Amex - you can earn on cruises and the Energy company.
Flight Earning - I'm not quite sure how you have to fly A LOT to get a reward. As a matter of fact, in most cases, you fly less than other airlines.
Flight Redemption Availability - Agreed, if booked early.
Flight Redemption "Price" - Agreed.
Flight Partner Redemption - Agreed.
Non-Flight Partner Redemption - Agreed.
Point Expiration - So the 1 perk of havign the Amex card still earns this category an F?? A little hars, no? I agree it's definitely not an A - but maybe even a C/D?
Elite Program - While elite programs may be great for other airlines, it goes against the philosophy of JetBlue.
Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - F??? There are definitely promos and bonuses that are only available to TB members. I recall many requiring members to log in to the TB account in order to earn bonus points. For example, the $25 off and 50 TB points one not too long ago.

sbm12, as always I respect your analysis. You are one of the few on here who takes the time to put concise points into your posts.

Allow me to respond to some of your comments which I feel are not as accurate. Your grade of C is very fair, but I would bump it up to a C+/B- based on the following:

Partner Earning - Not only Amex - you can earn on cruises and the Energy company.
I've still not seen the price differential on the energy earning from anyone to say whether it is a reasonable deal or not. I can also just buy MR points and transfer them in (and I had forgotten that MR was a partner) but that value is terrible and doesn't make the program better.


Flight Earning - I'm not quite sure how you have to fly A LOT to get a reward. As a matter of fact, in most cases, you fly less than other airlines.

I do not believe this to be accurate at all. If you ONLY buy tickets at jetblue.com to get the 2x bonus you've got a chance, but otherwise the numbers aren't there, particularly when compared to someone who can put 50-100K BIS miles on an alliance and get 50-125% bonuses in earnings. I only need to fly 12K miles to earn 25K RDMs. That's 3x r/t transcon. On B6 I'd be at 72 points (I think,and assuming online buying) and still need to fly a few times to get to the reward point. If I have to book via phone or a travel agent I'm only at 36 points, which is miserable.

Flight Redemption Availability - Agreed, if booked early.
Flight Redemption "Price" - Agreed.
Flight Partner Redemption - Agreed.
Non-Flight Partner Redemption - Agreed.
Point Expiration - So the 1 perk of havign the Amex card still earns this category an F?? A little hars, no? I agree it's definitely not an A - but maybe even a C/D?

I look at the value of the program as it stands on its own. If I have to pay $120 to keep my points alive long enough to use them that is a significant devaluation of the points.

And I think the free drink on the plane is a better perk. ;)
Elite Program - While elite programs may be great for other airlines, it goes against the philosophy of JetBlue.

I understand that, but it doesn't make up for some of the soft benefits that elites get, like shorter TSA lines, priority phone reservations, reduced fees, etc.

Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - F??? There are definitely promos and bonuses that are only available to TB members. I recall many requiring members to log in to the TB account in order to earn bonus points. For example, the $25 off and 50 TB points one not too long ago.
I forgot about that promo and will upgrade them a bit based on that. But compare it to Delta and Northwest where the promo machine continues to churn. That's not to say that the promos alone add value - if you can't redeem or the redemption costs too much it isn't worth it to earn the points - but JetBlue has very few promos for TrueBlue. No new route bonus point promotions any more. No partner promos. I'll upgrade it to a D+ because that one promo was pretty phenomenal, but overall they still trail by a wide margin, IMO.

I do not believe this to be accurate at all. If you ONLY buy tickets at jetblue.com to get the 2x bonus you've got a chance, but otherwise the numbers aren't there, particularly when compared to someone who can put 50-100K BIS miles on an alliance and get 50-125% bonuses in earnings. I only need to fly 12K miles to earn 25K RDMs. That's 3x r/t transcon. On B6 I'd be at 72 points (I think,and assuming online buying) and still need to fly a few times to get to the reward point. If I have to book via phone or a travel agent I'm only at 36 points, which is miserable.

- This furthers my point of changing the FF program to a miles based system because the current one IMHO doesn't bode well for ANY traveler using this FF program from the casual traveler to one that fly every week.

I look at the value of the program as it stands on its own. If I have to pay $120 to keep my points alive long enough to use them that is a significant devaluation of the points.

And I think the free drink on the plane is a better perk. ;)

- Totally agree on this one. In addition, you would have to pay annual fees for the credit card :td: A better perk would be a free "mixed" drink on the plane :).

I understand that, but it doesn't make up for some of the soft benefits that elites get, like shorter TSA lines, priority phone reservations, reduced fees, etc.

- And yes frequent flyers do benefit greatly from these more then you can imagine. I know most FF will not carry more than a laptop bag and a carry-on roller bag on most flights but when we go for those one in a while vacations where we can't avoid checking in bags, the elimination of bag fees do serve us well. In addition, I'm seeing more often than not that the last 1/4 of the people who board on the last several flights can't put their roller bags in the cabin regardless of whether check bag fees are in place or not. Also, think about last year's fiasco and how beneficial priority phone reservations can make a difference between getting the next flight out and not getting one for another 2 days. I had this happen at JFK last year and ORD the year before. On UA from ORD, I had my flight cancelled. I was able to get an earlier flight to LAX from the priority phone lines before the big snowstorm hits. At JFK last year, the same situation got me stuck for more than a day after the snowstorm hit (same time period where JetBlue had to introduce their "Customer Bill of Rights").

If I didn't like JetBlue, I wouldn't care about writing this. I really like the airline outside of the FF Program (lots of non-stops from LGB to BOS, JFK, FLL, LAS, DirectTV on all flights no matter how long or short the flight is, confortable seats, good prices overall). As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for the horrible FF program, I would be almost strictly flying JetBlue instead of the legacies. I find that the legacies have enough perks to keep me flying them for now.

I'd give it a F+ as well.

One-way tickets are nice. That's about it. I can't think of a single thing, other than the one-way ticketing, that TrueBlue does better than the legacy carrier FFPs.

Love the one way bookings, but my biggest peeve is the expiring awards. You want the miles to expire..................fine....but i earned the reward, don't just take it away after a year.

This is an interesting question, and knowing this forum, I am sure it will live on well past the OP's window of usefulness. :)

It seems like right now FFP are going through a fitful stage. You see USAir no longer offering bonus points to their most loyal fliers(a check of their board will give anyone more than enough of a view) and almost every airline is jacking up fees to apply awards and lowering the availability of awards. USAir(I'm not using them as the whipping boy, I just know more about them) is now charging $150 USD to make a change to an award reservation.

A visit through these boards shows the affect of these many changes and though I enjoy your question, darcie_InsideFlyer, I don't envy the process you will have to design to evaluate them. Straight miles, points per stage length and dollar amount spent are all different bases for earning potential and that is just one variable.

Although I will be anxious to read the article when it comes out the information inside may indeed be obsolete by the time winter rolls through. What will the New DL's program look like? Jetblue has a plan to "tweak" TB coupled with an announcement of "cooperation" with LH are expected to be announced this year. Further restrictions from US domestic airlines are likely. Some FF's wil only use their miles to fly on partner carriers that serve international destinations as they are getting a better "deal".

As for my interpretation, I'll lend my voice to sbm12's assertions, excepting:

"Flight Earning - C. Only real value is if you can always book online. If not, you have to fly a LOT to get to a reward flight."

Looking at it from a FF perspective, a) who wouldn't book online?, and b) as someone who has the Amex card, 4 transcon round trips is pretty good. I would give it a B based on these assumptions.

"Point Expiration - F. They have the most customer-unfriendly policy of any program I'm familiar with. It prevents a customer from saving up points for future redemptions. Yes, the AmEx card provides some assistance on this front, but an occasional flier (1-2x annually) can never earn enough points for a free ticket in a cost-effective manner."

It doesn't seem that TB was set up with the "occasional flier" in mind when they started, does it? It's strange becasue the large majority of B6's customer base are leisure travelers and are, if not by definition then certainly by majority, occasional fliers. Seems a little backward to me. However the deal with Amex, 50 TB points on sign up and membership of $40/year, would ensure that the occasional flier, say 2 West Coasts a year, would earn 2 oneway awards after one year for a $40 charge. Subsequent awards, would be every 2 years at a cost of $80 given no "Special" earning deals. BTW, for the more frequent flier membership fees for TB Amex are alot cheaper than other airlines affiliated CC programs.

Again, from a frequent flier perspective who would have to have the AMEX/FFP credit card, I would give it an A. Although the frequent flier wouldn't have to worry about points expiring he/she would end up paying less than most other programs out there charge for the right to earn points on CC. From a casual traveler perspective I'd give it a D, as there is a yearly cost associated with keeping your points active.

"Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - D+. There are very few. One great promo from May keeps them alive here, but otherwise not much out there for new routes, partners or anything similar."

The promo from May, 50TB points and $25 off, the equivalent of "buy 2, get one free" was a great deal! Maybe we'll see it again.^

As for other benefits, there seems to be a higher responsiveness from the TB reps. They seem to do what they can to help you, even going as far as organizing a tour through the as-of-yet unopened and under construction new Terminal 5 at JFK.

"Overall - C-. There are a lot of good things about the program for people who can work within the rules that JetBlue operates under, but it is not a FF program for the casual passenger and only barely is useful for the very frequent flier."

I don't find this program "barely useful for the very frequent flier" at all unless that FF only wants to use awards to travel to Europe(Or Asia or Africa or anywhere else outside the US excepting the Carribean :p) or wants the upgrade on every domestic flight.(I understand these are big deals for most.) For those who fly Jetblue's network and are familiar and comfortable with their cabin layout this program is quite useful for the very frequent flier. Connectivity with international airline service is the most important thing lacking to me.

I'd be more inclined to C/B-. Occasional/Frequent traveler respectively.

Good luck with your story!

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Question for the author: do you really want B6 employees participating in this exercise?

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.02; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Question for the author: do you really want B6 employees participating in this exercise?

How would be participate? I only have a TB account because I have the AMEX card. BTW is an F+ possible? :p Is that failing but failing with style or something? :D

How would be participate? I only have a TB account because I have the AMEX card. BTW is an F+ possible? :p Is that failing but failing with style or something? :DUh... Okay?

Maybe your post == fail? :confused:

:)

As an infrequent flyer I would give it a B .
I have an Amex card and manage to earn enough points via flying and Amex
to get a free ticket once a year. Using the one way option I can maximize the dollars I save (using it for 125$ flights instead of 99$) . So for a 40$ amex fee I can save 250 a year. Its not bad for someone who flies 2 or 3 times a year. What would be useful is to redeem the points to save on hotel rooms or rental cars. I think for those business travels giving them option to use the first class line in cities that have long lines (like LAS) would be a nice perk (or interface with the LH frequent flyer program).

"Flight Earning - C. Only real value is if you can always book online. If not, you have to fly a LOT to get to a reward flight."

Looking at it from a FF perspective, a) who wouldn't book online?, and b) as someone who has the Amex card, 4 transcon round trips is pretty good. I would give it a B based on these assumptions.

- A lot of people who are FF cannot book their flights on the jetblue.com site but have to use their corporate travel sites to book their flights. Therefore, many people can't get the 2x bonus for jetblue.com online books thus really affecting the point value to get the award ticket. Again, what good does it do when you can't even accumulate enough points to get the award ticket in the first place despite flying a lot to get to it. I don't think the cost and time value is there to make it a valuable asset.

"Point Expiration - F. They have the most customer-unfriendly policy of any program I'm familiar with. It prevents a customer from saving up points for future redemptions. Yes, the AmEx card provides some assistance on this front, but an occasional flier (1-2x annually) can never earn enough points for a free ticket in a cost-effective manner."

It doesn't seem that TB was set up with the "occasional flier" in mind when they started, does it? It's strange becasue the large majority of B6's customer base are leisure travelers and are, if not by definition then certainly by majority, occasional fliers. Seems a little backward to me. However the deal with Amex, 50 TB points on sign up and membership of $40/year, would ensure that the occasional flier, say 2 West Coasts a year, would earn 2 oneway awards after one year for a $40 charge. Subsequent awards, would be every 2 years at a cost of $80 given no "Special" earning deals. BTW, for the more frequent flier membership fees for TB Amex are alot cheaper than other airlines affiliated CC programs.

Again, from a frequent flier perspective who would have to have the AMEX/FFP credit card, I would give it an A. Although the frequent flier wouldn't have to worry about points expiring he/she would end up paying less than most other programs out there charge for the right to earn points on CC. From a casual traveler perspective I'd give it a D, as there is a yearly cost associated with keeping your points active.

- Well the majority can't put this AMEX TB card in good use for the most part since a lot of them are tied to their own corporate cards. However, I will give it to you that the AMEX TB is still better than most corporate cards that don't give you any sort of rewards :).


"Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - D+. There are very few. One great promo from May keeps them alive here, but otherwise not much out there for new routes, partners or anything similar."

The promo from May, 50TB points and $25 off, the equivalent of "buy 2, get one free" was a great deal! Maybe we'll see it again.^

As for other benefits, there seems to be a higher responsiveness from the TB reps. They seem to do what they can to help you, even going as far as organizing a tour through the as-of-yet unopened and under construction new Terminal 5 at JFK.

- While I agree that the May promo is a great promo (I only say great because you are not tied to using the AMEX TB CC), again, for most of us who fly frequently, some of us are tied to using our corporate card that we're forced to use (of course this does exclude the AMEX corp cards you lucky bastids :)). And maybe they can go as far as organizing a tour of the whole LGB airport including walking/running on the runway areas (oh wait, you actually go outside to get to the plane there where your spitting distance between the entrance of the plane and the runway :)).


And yes, good luck on the story as well. I would be very curious to read the final article in October about this.

Actually Yes.

TB FF program: F
Almost everything else except for TB FF program: + (actually I'll call it a "check +" like in the days where teachers don't give letter grades from assignments but using the check system to see how well you did your assignment :)).

I guess I can add the $7 pillows/blankets as a bad thing for Jetblue just on the "nickel and dime" principles that most other airlines do these days except for these things:

- at least you get a clean and fresh pillow and blanket that you can keep
- it has nothing to do with rating the TB FF program :).

"Flight Earning - C. Only real value is if you can always book online. If not, you have to fly a LOT to get to a reward flight."

Looking at it from a FF perspective, a) who wouldn't book online?, and b) as someone who has the Amex card, 4 transcon round trips is pretty good. I would give it a B based on these assumptions.

As already noted, there are many folks tied to corporate booking engines. And, ironically, these are the most frequent of fliers. CO has a similar "feature" in their program where their cheapest fares booked anywhere than co.com only get half credit towards elite status, but still get full reward point credit. And a lot of folks over there complain, too. If you base the concept of a reward flight on 25K miles flown - and that seems to be a relatively consistent standard - JetBlue is the only carrier I am aware of that has the half credit issue for flights not booked on their website.


"Point Expiration - F. They have the most customer-unfriendly policy of any program I'm familiar with. It prevents a customer from saving up points for future redemptions. Yes, the AmEx card provides some assistance on this front, but an occasional flier (1-2x annually) can never earn enough points for a free ticket in a cost-effective manner."

It doesn't seem that TB was set up with the "occasional flier" in mind when they started, does it? It's strange becasue the large majority of B6's customer base are leisure travelers and are, if not by definition then certainly by majority, occasional fliers. Seems a little backward to me. However the deal with Amex, 50 TB points on sign up and membership of $40/year, would ensure that the occasional flier, say 2 West Coasts a year, would earn 2 oneway awards after one year for a $40 charge. Subsequent awards, would be every 2 years at a cost of $80 given no "Special" earning deals. BTW, for the more frequent flier membership fees for TB Amex are alot cheaper than other airlines affiliated CC programs.

Again, from a frequent flier perspective who would have to have the AMEX/FFP credit card, I would give it an A. Although the frequent flier wouldn't have to worry about points expiring he/she would end up paying less than most other programs out there charge for the right to earn points on CC. From a casual traveler perspective I'd give it a D, as there is a yearly cost associated with keeping your points active.

I look at the program straight up, without the AmEx, since that is what is offered. I do not have a CC for any airline program (I got the CO one for some ridiculous bonus miles/Travel Club credit and promptly canceled). Plus, not everyone can get a CC issued to them. Plus, with the exception of Qantas for Aussie residents I am not familiar with any FF program that has an annual fee tied to it. Yes, having the AmEx card provides benefits, but IMHO the program should be evaluated based on how it stands up on its own, and that's why I graded it so low in this category.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that JetBlue designed the program the way they did. Tempting people with the idea of free tickets but in reality they never get to them. JetBlue has fewer inventory issues because fewer redemptions happen. It makes sense to me and doesn't actually appear at first blush to be so bad, but it is.


"Promos/Bonuses/Other Benefits - D+. There are very few. One great promo from May keeps them alive here, but otherwise not much out there for new routes, partners or anything similar."

The promo from May, 50TB points and $25 off, the equivalent of "buy 2, get one free" was a great deal! Maybe we'll see it again.^

As for other benefits, there seems to be a higher responsiveness from the TB reps. They seem to do what they can to help you, even going as far as organizing a tour through the as-of-yet unopened and under construction new Terminal 5 at JFK.

I didn't consider the JFK T5 tour a TrueBlue benefit. It wasn't opened to or even targeted at TrueBlue memebers specifically. It was a great event and I love that JetBlue did that for us, but I cannot consider that to be a perk of the TB program. As for responsiveness and friendliness, I've not had to deal with the reps (I can't seem to earn enough points for a reward ;)), but it seems to me that the CSRs are, overall, friendly and helpful, though there are still the small population of folks who mess up the rules and inspire posts here about fighting to get back money/credits in some way. So they're fine, but not worthy of special recognition IMO.



"Overall - C-. There are a lot of good things about the program for people who can work within the rules that JetBlue operates under, but it is not a FF program for the casual passenger and only barely is useful for the very frequent flier."

I don't find this program "barely useful for the very frequent flier" at all unless that FF only wants to use awards to travel to Europe(Or Asia or Africa or anywhere else outside the US excepting the Carribean :p) or wants the upgrade on every domestic flight.(I understand these are big deals for most.) For those who fly Jetblue's network and are familiar and comfortable with their cabin layout this program is quite useful for the very frequent flier. Connectivity with international airline service is the most important thing lacking to me.

I'd be more inclined to C/B-. Occasional/Frequent traveler respectively.

Good luck with your story!

For the VFFs, another transcon is generally low on their idea of a great vacation idea. I know it is low on mine. And the value for those rewards is limited to levels that are easily surpassed when premium cabin, long-haul travel comes in to the picture. For the VFF a more robust program is needed to provide real value.

Plus, all the above is just my opinion. I understand that many don't agree with me across the board (and on this board) but I think that the limitations of the program are significant enough that they outweigh the few areas that the program does REALLY WELL. As I said in my initial post, the reward availability and redemption pricing is towards the top of the industry, especially since Caribbean flights are the same price as domestics. But I still think that the overall has too many holes for it to be considered a great program overall.

Looking backwards, I'll give it a D. Looking forwards, I'll anticipate it being a D-.

Comments:

1. One-way awards at half the cost of a RT award are nice. This sets B6 apart from the industry, with only FL offering a similar reward structure to my knowledge.

2. Availability is good if you book 'well in advance'. For B6, 'well in advance' means 4-6 months rather than 9-11 months at many of the legacies. Of course, I suspect availability is good because few people ever manage to acquire rewards!

3. My improved grade (D) for the past is for the promos. When they celebrated their 5th anniversary out of BOS, I stayed up all night at the Pru to get the free ticket. Stupid? yes. Fun? sort of. Do it again? No way. Then when B6 was getting creamed in PIT they offered the 'Fly PIT RT, fly free ANYWHERE' promo last fall. That was a windfall, as PIT-BOS can be done for $130. We, uh, stocked-up! MRing on B6 -- who'd have thought it possible?

But as others have mentioned, B6's promos have been few and far between lately, and I wouldn't expect anything nearly as exciting as both of these that I mentioned. So looking forward, I give it a D-, with the only saving grace being the one-way awards.

And for those claiming that B6 will close the gap on other FFP's, that's probably true, but only by default. The Big Boys are almost certain to keep making cuts to their FFP's, but B6's FFP is so skimpy to begin with that I honestly don't see what they could cut and still have a program at all!!!

Thanks orangecoatkid and sbm12. I enjoyed reading your posts and you have made some good points. A large portion of them seem to be based around the corporate business traveler.

Obviously, this program is not tailored to that segment. Although Jetblue has been attempting to make inroads in the business sector I don't see them making serious inroads in the corporate sub-sector in any substantial way for a multitude of reasons that has been covered on this board, their FFP being one of them. Should Jetblue wish to garner some share of this market they would need to change far more than their FFP to accomodate these travelers, including network/partnering, interlining, frequency, cabin config., etc., etc., etc. They seem to be focusing on the mid to small company business traveler who are given freedom to book their own travel as well as convention organizers all of whom may also use the airline on leisure.

It is true that the occasional traveler gets a raw deal on point expiration, and, more generally, the entire program but there is a route for those who just really like Jetblue to earn awards every one to two years. As I've said that route is subpar but as one has noted Jetblue doesn't seem to mind about that.

For the more frequent flier that can do w/o upgrades and an extensive international netwok this program stacks up quite well against others and surpasses them on some things which you've already mentioned.

Forward looking, I see the program gaining some traction with possible partnering and a more concentrated network and I am not sure how anyone can be sure that the recent spate of Promo's that have been mentioned are so assuredly a thing of the past. The last large one was only 3 months ago! I would see the plan only increasing in perceived value as their customer base matures and expects more. It's useful to point out that there may be some benefits to Jetblue "becoming like every other airline" dirge that seems to be the hot button phrase around here and other boards.

"To thine own self be true."

Btw, digging around the Jetblue site I came up with this as it relates to double award points for businesses booking with Jetblue. Not sure at how useful this is or how frequently the systems are used:

TrueBlue
Fly JetBlue. Earn Award Flights.

When corporate travelers fly JetBlue, they not only get a "Thank You", they can also get points towards Award Flights by joining TrueBlue, our customer loyalty program. TrueBlue members earn points on all flights depending on their length - and double points when they book their flights on jetblue.com and approved corporate booking tools.

http://www.jetblue.com/about/corptravel/about_corpDistPartBookTools.html

These tools include Travelport and Cliqbook.

Still, I concede the argument that Jetblue as an airline is facing an uphill battle in catering to Corporate Business.

Btw, digging around the Jetblue site I came up with this as it relates to double award points for businesses booking with Jetblue. Not sure at how useful this is or how frequently the systems are used:


It's not going to help as long as corporate folks need to have their travel departments book the travel. I can't see travel departments using special software just to book on JetBlue.

I understand that B6 wants to discourage phone reservations, but dissuading corporate travelers is really not the best strategy.

Btw, digging around the Jetblue site I came up with this as it relates to double award points for businesses booking with Jetblue. Not sure at how useful this is or how frequently the systems are used:

TrueBlue
Fly JetBlue. Earn Award Flights.

When corporate travelers fly JetBlue, they not only get a "Thank You", they can also get points towards Award Flights by joining TrueBlue, our customer loyalty program. TrueBlue members earn points on all flights depending on their length - and double points when they book their flights on jetblue.com and approved corporate booking tools.

http://www.jetblue.com/about/corptravel/about_corpDistPartBookTools.html

These tools include Travelport and Cliqbook.

Still, I concede the argument that Jetblue as an airline is facing an uphill battle in catering to Corporate Business.

- Again, this goes back to the fact that we can't book travel through jetblue.com, Travelport and Cliqbook due to strict requirements for our companies to use specific websites tied to our companies (AMEX travel would be a prime example) which makes it completely not useful. So the double points don't even apply to most people here which makes it harder to even accumulate enough points to get an award ticket in the first place.

Forward looking, I see the program gaining some traction with possible partnering and a more concentrated network and I am not sure how anyone can be sure that the recent spate of Promo's that have been mentioned are so assuredly a thing of the past.

Fair enough. If they bring back some awesome promos (in the category of BOGO or virtually free flights), I'll raise my grade at that time from a D- to a solid D! That's only reasonable, and thanks for pointing it out.

For the more frequent flier that can do w/o upgrades and an extensive international network this program stacks up quite well against others and surpasses them on some things which you've already mentioned.

- I disagree on this one even if you do an apples to apples comparison on the other LCC's that include no real international network (WN, AirTran, F9) and no FC upgrades (let's strip out F9 and AirTran's FC cabins for this example). As a matter of fact, even if you include legacies that don't include the upgrades and international network, B6's FFP pales in comparison. A big part of why B6 pales is their expiration date policy (excluding getting their TB AMEX). F9 only expires after inactivity of redeeming or accruing miles after 24 months. WN RR expires after 24 months vs. 12 for B6. Airtran can also partner with F9 and vice versa as far as earning points/miles for flights and status unlike B6. Another thing is that even the LLC have elite status programs that B6 doesn't currently have gives even the casual traveler who travels 5x a year from coast to coast an opportunity to put themselves in position to gain better earning opprotunites for redeeming awards quicker (WN's A+, F9's only need 15k to gain status and 25k to gain the highest status, AirTran even has an elite program where a certain amount of credits for a 3 month or a 12 month period will give you elite status).

Forward looking, I see the program gaining some traction with possible partnering and a more concentrated network and I am not sure how anyone can be sure that the recent spate of Promo's that have been mentioned are so assuredly a thing of the past. The last large one was only 3 months ago! I would see the plan only increasing in perceived value as their customer base matures and expects more. It's useful to point out that there may be some benefits to Jetblue "becoming like every other airline" dirge that seems to be the hot button phrase around here and other boards.

"To thine own self be true."

- I certainly hope the program does gain some traction and rating the program and putting an article about TB on InsideFlyer is a good start to this. Although a lot of my posts have concentrated on the more FF person, there's a lot of substance that the majority of airline revenue comes from the business traveler that flies every week. WN did realize this the past year to put in BS and A+ to woo business travelers and I believe that tactic is working well enough to keep WN profitable and flourshing (although I would never fly WN even with the changes). In this airline business that's heavily crippled to make profits and revenue, your increased revenue will come from the business traveler that's not going to be concerned with the airfare ticket vs. the casual traveler that usually don't fly more than 3-5 times a year or two due to budget constraints. Again, I do believe that the TB program is one program where the right improvements can really improve JetBlue's business. Partnering with other airlines would be the #1 improvement for B6 even if there was no TB FFP. The biggest complaint so far with B6 from the B6 forums has been the inability to put you on another flight with a different carrier when cancellations come into play. With winter storms coming in at JFK, this is basically a guarantee every year.

SBM12's list summarizes up many of my thoughts, with a few exceptions.

1) The points expiration is far too short. Fortunately I travel mostly between NYC & FL, otherwise I think most of my points would expire long before I'd be able to redeem them. I've racked up 2 round-trip flights thus far, but that's only because of my current situation. There's been plenty of times when I need to fly somewhere but JetBlue doesn't go there. And I'm not about to try to use JFK as a connecting airport -- too many delays. I don't think the points value is too low nor too high, just that the points expire too fast for most people to use them.

2) The Amex card... Most FFs on here already have at least one Amex, do we really need/want another? I don't. Especially considering how low the points bonus is for the card. As an added insult, there's the $40 annual fee on top of it. For example, round-trip flight from RSW-JFK is $228 before taxes & fees. ($249 after). With the B6 Amex, it's $20,000 = 1 round-trip flight. 228/20000=1.14%. And I still have to overcome the $40 fee. The "worst" bonus card I have in my wallet pays 1.5% cash on everything. Then there's others in my wallet that pay 2-5% back on specific things. Even the SPG Amex rebates usually are in the 3+% range.

All of that said, I still like JetBlue. It's the one airline that makes me reconsider flying general aviation. If they have a direct flight at the time I need, I fly them vs. GA. They mostly get things right. I do hope they don't start nickel & diming that everyone else has. Air travel used to be a privilege and a treat. Between the TSA & some of the legacy carriers, it's become something about as pleasant and welcome as a root canal or prostate exam.

Another problem with Trueblue is when JetBlue has weather issues.

This summer has been especially tough with alot of T-storms at JFK.

As a frequent flier of Jetblue I have been using some Trueblue awards this summer. After the Valentines day disaster, JetBlue has the good policy of letting travelers reschedule their flight at no-charge when there is a good possibility of weather delays.

However with a TrueBlue ticket you cannot make that change online like everyone else effected by the weather. Then it takes forever to get through to the 800 number and by that point there is no availailability for any flights, sometimes for several days. Thus you are forced to buy a oneway ticket at a high price on another airline since Jetblue has no agreements with partner airlines. Then you have to jump through hoops with Jetblue to give you back your unused free ticket. A high price for a free ticket.

At first I thought this was a one time thing, but it has happened to me 3 times already this summer.