Pros
- No membership fees
- 0% intro APR on balance transfers
- High rewards rate
- 10,000 points initial rewards bonus
Cons
- No intro APR on purchases
- Balance transfer fee
- Requires good/excellent credit
JetBlue Card
Transfer Fee: 5% (min $5)
- Earn 3 points per $1 spent on JetBlue purchases; 2 points per $1 at restaurants and grocery stores and 1 point per $1 on all other purchases.
Rewards Details
- Earn 10,000 TrueBlue bonus points after spending $1,000 on purchases in the first 90 days.
- Earn 3 points per $1 spent on JetBlue purchases; 2 points per $1 at restaurants and grocery stores and 1 point per $1 on all other purchases.
- Redeem for any seat, any time on JetBlue operated flights, along with no blackout dates and points awarded into your account don’t expire.
- Earn and share points together with Points Pooling.
- 50% savings on eligible inflight purchases like cocktails and food on JetBlue-operated flights.
Additional Info
- 0% Introductory APR on balance transfer posted within 45 days of account opening.
- $0 Fraud Liability protection for unauthorized charges.
- More Details & Reviews About JetBlue Card
Is the JetBlue Card Worth It?
The JetBlue Card is worth it for JetBlue flyers who have good credit or better and don’t want to pay an annual fee. The JetBlue Card gives 1 - 3 points per $1 spent and offers an initial bonus of 10,000 points after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days. You can also get 50% back on eligible in-flight purchases using the card.
While the JetBlue Card is the primary focus of this review, you should also consider the JetBlue Plus Card if you fly regularly. It’s a very similar card, but it gives 1 - 6 points per $1 spent and its bonus is 60,000 points after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days and paying the annual fee. Plus, the JetBlue Plus Card offers a few more premium perks, like free checked bags, an annual $100 statement credit if you purchase a $100+ JetBlue Vacations package and 10% of your points back when you redeem for JetBlue flights. However, this card comes with a $99 annual fee, and it requires excellent credit.
What You Need to Do to Make the JetBlue Card Worthwhile
To make the JetBlue Card worthwhile, you should pay your bill in full every month so interest doesn’t eat into the value that you get from rewards. You should also make sure to spend at least $1,000 in the first 90 days to get the initial bonus of 10,000 points. You don’t have to worry about spending a specific amount beyond that since there’s no annual fee.
With the JetBlue Plus Card, earning the initial bonus can cover the cost of your annual fee for a few years. But without taking that into consideration, you’d have to spend around $1,100 to $6,800 to break even in a normal year, depending on what you purchase. That’s assuming you redeem for airfare at a rate of 1.64 cents each.
JetBlue Card Highlights
- 10,000-Point Initial Bonus: The standard JetBlue Card offers 10,000 points after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days, worth up to $136 when redeemed for JetBlue airfare. If that’s not enough for you and you have excellent credit, the JetBlue Plus Card offers 60,000 points after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days and paying the annual fee, redeemable for roughly $680. If you’re not sure whether your credit score is good, excellent or other, you can check it for free on WalletHub — the first and only site to offer free credit scores and full credit reports that are updated on a daily basis.
- Up To 3 Points Per $1 Spent: Unlike most airline credit cards, which offer points, the JetBlue Mastercard provides its rewards in the form of points. You will receive 3 points per $1 spent with JetBlue, 2 points per $1 spent at restaurants and grocery stores and 1 point per $1 spent on everything else with no cap on the number of points you can earn. And given the varying rewards currencies that credit cards offer, it’s wise to convert such figures into cash-back percentages, based on the number of points needed to redeem for flights. From that perspective, the JetBlue Card offers 4.08%, 2.72% and 1.36% back, respectively, in its three earning categories. The average rewards credit card yields 1.15%, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report.
- No Annual Fee: Many of the best airline rewards cards charge annual fees to offset the cost of their valuable perks. But the JetBlue Credit Card is not among them, a fact that figures to both save you money and enable you to keep your account open indefinitely even if you don’t always use your card consistently.
JetBlue Card Lowlights
- Above-average regular APR: If you get approved for the JetBlue Credit Card, you will be assigned a regular APR of 21.24% - 29.99% (V), based on your overall creditworthiness. For context, the market average for excellent-credit credit cards is 18.04%, while for good credit cards is 24.12%. In short, this isn’t the card with which to carry a balance from month to month.
- 5% (min $5) Balance-Transfer Fee: The JetBlue Card offers 0% financing on transferred balances for the first 12 months, which could still save you money, but is made less intriguing by a 5% (min $5) balance-transfer fee. Considering the other options available to people with good credit, this is likely a deal breaker, but you can nevertheless use a credit card calculator to gauge your savings potential.
- Redemption Restrictions: While JetBlue is one of only two airlines (the other is Delta) whose points do not expire because of account inactivity, the airline also is on a less attractive short list as one of four airlines that do not allow rewards to be redeemed for flights that include layovers. That significantly limits redemption flexibility and forces cardholders into more expensive fares. But if you always fly nonstop already, you have nothing to worry about. The same goes for JetBlue’s limited number of travel partners, which could be problematic, but not if you don’t often stray from this small circle of airlines when booking flights. Furthermore, JetBlue claims no blackout dates or seat restrictions for cardholders, but that can mean different things in practice.
Other Things to Consider About the JetBlue Card
- Half Off In-Flight Purchases: JetBlue is known for its comfort, perhaps most notably its exemplary entertainment options. But you can make your in-flight experience even more enjoyable without breaking the bank, thanks to the JetBlue Mastercard’s automatic 50% discount on beverages (alcoholic and otherwise), food and movies.
- No Foreign-Transaction Fee: Fortunately, if your JetBlue flights often take you abroad or you’ve been known to make credit-card purchases through international merchants, the JetBlue Mastercard won’t nickel-and-dime you with a surcharge. The average credit card charges a 1.56% foreign-transaction fee, and this has fallen steadily in recent years.
- You Can Pool Your Points: Not all rewards programs allow members to share earnings with one another, even family members with separate accounts. So that fact that friends and family can pool their points is a nice rarity.
JetBlue Card vs. The Competition
Just like there any many fish in the sea, there are also numerous airlines in the sky and hundreds of cards you could add to your wallet. In order to help illustrate your options, we compared the JetBlue Credit Card to some of the most notable alternatives, including cards affiliated with other airlines and those offering “generic” travel rewards.
Bear in mind that certain terms associated with each offer vary based on an applicant’s credit standing, so the offer you get approved for may differ slightly from what is displayed below. For the purposes of this comparison, we assumed the most favorable redemption rates and most expensive cost structure for each card. After all, you can maximize the value of your earnings with strategic redemption, but you’ll have little control over fees and interest rates.
WINNER | |||
---|---|---|---|
annual fee$0 | annual fee$99 | annual fee$99 | annual fee$95 |
Purchase Intro APRN/A | Purchase Intro APRN/A | Purchase Intro APRN/A | Purchase Intro APRN/A |
transfer intro apr0% for 12 months Transfer Fee: 5% (min $5) | transfer intro apr0% for 12 months Transfer Fee: 5% (min $5) | transfer intro aprN/A | transfer intro aprN/A |
Regular APR21.24% - 29.99% (V) | Regular APR21.24% - 29.99% (V) | Regular APR21.49% - 28.49% (V) | Regular APR19.99% - 29.99% (V) |
rewards rate
| rewards rate
| rewards rate
| rewards rate
|
bonus offer 10,000 points | bonus offer 60,000 points | bonus offer Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. | bonus offer Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel |
SponsoredApply Now |
JetBlue Card Review Methodology
This JetBlue Card review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the JetBlue Card and all other cards, WalletHub’s credit card experts make it easy for people to compare their options and find the best credit cards for their needs.
The WalletHub rating system uses 16 key metrics grouped into seven categories: Fees, Rewards, Two-year Cost, Interest Rates, Approval Requirements, Special Features, and Reviews. Each metric has a maximum number of points allocated to it, based on the metric’s importance as determined by our editors. The points are added up to create an overall rating for the JetBlue Card out of a maximum of 100 points, which is then converted to a 5-point scale.
Ratings for each category reflect how close JetBlue Card is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star credit card, which is based on market conditions and what we believe are reasonable terms. We compare JetBlue Card to that standard to give a numerical approximation of how reasonable and competitive its terms are compared to other cards.
To learn more about how WalletHub rates credit card offers, check out our full credit card review methodology.
WalletHub experts are widely quoted. Contact our media team to schedule an interview.