In 2013, JetBlue introduced a family pooling feature for their TrueBlue program. I’m a big fan of any program that lets you pool points, since it makes rewards more accessible for the average member.
In other words, if you’re a family traveling together, you’re going to earn a reward much more quickly if you can pool all the points you earn, rather than having to earn and redeem them separately.
While JetBlue has now offered a family pooling feature for several years, it has come with some restrictions:
- You could only pool points for up to two adults and five children (anyone under the age of 21)
- Each member could select how many points they wanted to contribute to the “pool” upfront, and the percentage of points that they wanted to contribute to the “pool” on an ongoing basis with each transaction
In August JetBlue announced a new points pooling system
In late August, JetBlue announced that they’re making some changes to their family pooling program, which will simply be called points pooling going forward.
With the new points pooling program, up to seven TrueBlue members can combine accounts, with no limits on the age of the members, or whether or not they’re relatives, live at the same address, etc.
Furthermore, members will automatically contribute 100% of their points to the pool, though they can leave the pool whenever they want, and can take all unused points with them.
The pool leader will be able to give other members in the pool the ability to redeem points from the pooled total, so it won’t just be the “head of household” who can redeem these points.
JetBlue’s new points pooling system is now live
While the new points pooling feature was announced in August, it actually just officially went live. So you can now finally create a points pool under the more relaxed requirements.
The process of getting started is really easy. Just log into your TrueBlue account and you’ll see the option listed on the right side. Alternatively you can just follow this link.
The next page will show you the basics of points pooling.
Then you’ll see all of the points pooling “slots” that you can fill.
You’ll then be given the option of inviting a member, which can be done by entering their first name and email address.
That person will receive an email with a link to join the pool by logging into their TrueBlue account.
It’s that easy — at that point the points pooling will be activated.
When you log back into the pool you’ll also have the option of allowing your pool members access to pooled points. Without that, only the leader of the pool will be able to redeem points.
Bottom line
I’m so happy to see JetBlue’s improved points pooling system live. While TrueBlue isn’t the most aspirational frequent flyer program, the fact that they allow “no strings attached” points pooling like this is a fantastic development, and something that makes me like TrueBlue as a currency even more.
Jetblue can do it because redemption rates are tied to the ticket prices and they know exactly how much value they are rebating when awarding points. I actually redeem on them a lot because of how convenient it is to redeem and they always have a good deal to places I want to go out of boston and JetBlue Plus card is such a dang good deal.
Why can't AA, UA, and DL do this as well? Oh right, because they love sticking it to the customer. Charging people to transfer miles already earned is ridiculous, but I am not holding my breath.
@ Brian. Thanks! That IS annoying. But it sounds like it will be fixed with these updates if I book my own travel from the pooled points, no?
I'm a little sad about the Badges. Sure, the IT powering them never ever worked right and they're a bit anachronistic now that the "gamification" trend is long over, but it was nice to just randomly get 1000 points here, 500 points there... It looks like the the Go Long, Take 3, and Lucky 7 all survived the chop, though.
@Eric we encountered the same thing. The JetBlue card only gives that 10% rebate to the primary cardholder when s/he redeems miles for their own travel. It's irritating: if they redeem for a spouse who has a JetBlue Plus card, they don't get the rebate.
I love family pooling so much. If I lived in NY I'd be a JetBlue loyalist for sure. I really wish they'd bought VX...
This is great news! Quick question: I’m in a pool with my husband. We both have the premium JetBlue card. Does anyone else have issues getting the 10% points rebate (on ticket purchases) to appear in the pool?
When do these changes take effect? I'm particularly nervous about the Badges going away because I've very close to the "Half Way There" badge (20,000 points), the Isle Sea You Soon badge (5,000 points), and the "Practically a local" badges of two other cities (1,000 points each)