Transfer Amex Points To JetBlue With 25% Bonus

The latest transfer bonus has just been announced for the Amex Membership Rewards program.

Transfer Amex Points To JetBlue With 25% Bonus

The US American Express Membership Rewards program is offering a 25% bonus when you transfer points to JetBlue TrueBlue through December 21, 2019.

Ordinarily points transfer at a 250:200 ratio, though during this promotion points transfer at a 250:250 (or 1:1) ratio.

Membership Rewards points transfers that result in more than 999,999 JetBlue TrueBlue points will not be accepted.

Also keep in mind that Amex passes on the federal excise tax when you’re transferring points to a US program, so you have to pay $0.0006 per transferred point (yes, that’s 0.06 cents per point), with a maximum of $99.

Is A 25% Transfer Bonus A Good Deal?

JetBlue TrueBlue is a revenue based frequent flyer program, meaning the cost of an award ticket varies based on how much a ticket would cost in cash. The thing about TrueBlue is that the pricing isn’t totally consistent, so you will find some variability.

Typically each TrueBlue point can be redeemed for somewhere around 1.4 cents towards airfare. To give a couple of examples:

• A $114 flight from Tampa to New York is bookable for 7,700 points plus $5.60 (1.4 cents per point)
• A $174 flight from Boston to Los Angeles is bookable for 12,400 points plus $5.60 (~1.35 cents per point)

JetBlue A320

Assuming you get ~1.4 cents of value per TrueBlue point, that also means you’d get somewhere around 1.4 cents of value per Membership Rewards point, given the 1:1 transfer ratio with the bonus.

That’s not exciting, though there is a way to potentially get more value than that. If you have the JetBlue Plus Card, you get a 10% refund on all your points redemptions, which helps stretch your points even further.

So assuming you have the card, you should be able to get over 1.5 cents of value per Membership Rewards point, which is better, but still not amazing.

I definitely wouldn’t speculatively convert Membership Rewards points into TrueBlue points. Much of the value from transferable points currencies comes from their flexibility. While it can sometimes make sense to take advantage of a transfer bonus, you’re losing a lot of flexibility when you transfer points.

Amex Membership Rewards has several other airline and hotel transfer partners, including the following:

My personal favorites are Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM FlyingBlue, Etihad Guest, Singapore KrisFlyer, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

Redeem ThankYou points for travel in Etihad’s A380 first class

Summary

Amex’s 25% transfer bonus to JetBlue TrueBlue means you can transfer points at a 1:1 ratio.

While I wouldn’t say it’s an awful deal, it’s also not a great deal. TrueBlue points can be redeemed for up to about 1.4 cents per point towards airfare, so getting that kind of value from your Membership Rewards points isn’t amazing.

The value does get a bit better if you have the co-branded JetBlue Card, since that gets you a 10% refund on award redemptions.

So personally I’d give this a pass, though if you’re someone who otherwise redeems Membership Rewards points for gift cards or toaster ovens, maybe this isn’t such a bad deal.

As a point of comparison, Citi ThankYou recently offered a 25% bonus on transfers to JetBlue TrueBlue, though:

• They don’t charge a federal excise tax
• If you have one of their premium cards, the transfer ratio is 1:1 to begin with, so you were looking at a 1:1.25 transfer ratio

Do you plan on taking advantage of Amex’s 25% transfer bonus to JetBlue?