My points will expire
 

Some of my TrueBlue points will expire in August and I have not found a way to extend them. I have applied several times for the JetBlue card and I keep getting declined. I have even called American Express to try to to convert one of my 2 accounts to the card but they wont do it. JetBlue is my favorite airline and these expiring points is making me consider flying Delta if they both charge me the same price to fly. Is there any other way to keep my points from expiring?

As far as I know, the only way to make your points "non-expiring" is by obtaining their AMEX card. Activity alone is not enough to keep your points alive.

how many points do you have total now? if you're up to 50 or 75, and have 24 expiring, it may make sense to buy enough points now to get to 100, then you'll have a year to use the resulting award...

I only have 32. I was thinking on purchasing some points to equal to 100 but that would cost just as much as buying a ticket.

Welcome (first post) to FT!

To prevent your points from expiring without signing up for the jetBlue AmEx, you might want to consider buying points to top off your account. Depending how many you need, it may very well be a viable option. Myself personally, I would say any account with OVER 50 points and some about to expire it may be worth doing this. It's $5 per point with a small transaction fee and 7.5% tax I believe. You can do so via the link on your TB home page. Also, here's some info from the FAQ section:

http://help.jetblue.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN...ase=obj(387161)

Well, that all depends. Buying 68 points needed equals about $385.50. In the above post I mentioned I think it would be very well worth it for any account with over 50 points and some about to expire. However, each situation is different - consider your next trip is priced at a lot more than $385.50 round trip and better yet, there's TB award availability on those flights. Then, you've made a wise decision in buying those points.

Also consider before switching over to DL that SkyMiles are much harder to redeem than TB points, IME.

Amex Card
 

If you get the AMEX card, for $40/year, your points won't expire with a little card activity and you will get 50 points by August (follow the link from True Blue and/or Amex)

It would cost you $270 to buy 50 pts, thats 6 years of the Amex fees.

BTW,make sure its the 50 pts link and not the 25 pts link. Not sure that lower link is still around, but one of the sites had it.

The OP was already declined for the card, so that isn't an option.

Welcome to the harsh reality of TrueBlue: the points may end up being worthless, and it is more likely that this will happen with TrueBlue than with other carriers. The big difference is that every other carrier's policy on expiration includes points earned for partner activity to keep the account alive. Since TrueBlue doesn't have these options, and because they have a hard expiration date on the points rather than an inactivity timeout it is much harder to keep the points.

I would not spend the ~$380 to buy up to 100 points unless you know that you have a ticket you need to book and you know that it is going to cost that much. Otherwise you're throwing good money away. Let them go; it is the only reasonable option for you at this point.

Sorry, missed that.

You said that Amex will not convert your card, which one do you have? You can transfer regular Amex Membership rewards points to your TB account. Since it is a ratio of 250 to 1 you would need 17,000 points to transfer to get a reward ticket. Just transferring the points does not extend the expiration, you would have to transfer enough to get a ticket. (Which also expires in a year) Also, you can have somebody else apply for the Amex and put in your TB account number. This would of course requite the cooperation of a friend or relative with better credit.

-Dave

Dave, can you explain what this means? I have 24 points expiring in July and I was about to get the Amex card, with the view of spending $200 on it to earn one point. My understanding was that those 51 TB points from Amex would extend my entire account (with 24+50+1 = 75 points) for another year? Is that incorrect?

If you have the AmEx card it is enough to keep your points alive (from my understanding - I don't have one). The original discussion was about extending them without the AmEx card, for which transfering points into the account would not suffice.

If you have the Jet Blue Amex card, then every time you spend $200 which earns you one Jet Blue point then you get your points extended for a year from that day.

However the OP could not get a JB Amex, but had a regular Amex. What you have to do then is transfer enough of the regular Amex membership rewards points to your True Blue account to get you an award voucher (100 true blue points). This allows people with non JB Amex cards to get an award tix on JB. Although at a worse rate. $25k in spend vs $20k in spend.

-Dave