There’s nothing in the airline industry that’s as good for consumers as a little competition. And in the best airline war since Delta versus Alaska, passengers are cleaning up on the Virgin America battle. For those who don’t remember, after a bidding war, Alaska Air announced that it was buying Virgin America. First, JetBlue announced a poorly constructed points match. Then, Virgin America showed them up by announcing a fare sale targeting customers that it thought had taken advantage of the point match. Virgin America upped the ante again by announcing an opportunity to earn status by transferring points from Membership Rewards. And now, JetBlue is announcing what appears to be a targeted double point promotion.
JetBlue 2X Good To Be True
Today, I received an email announcing JetBlue’s newest promotion, the 2X Good To Be True bonus. Any round-trip between now and November 16 will get you double base points. Sorry, no double points on your Mosaic or online booking bonus. There do not appear to be any blackout dates, so you have two holiday weekends, Veterans Day and Columbus Day. If you received the promotion, you don’t even have to register. They’ve done it for you. Unfortunately, previously booked flights don’t count. If you have Mosaic status, however, you can cancel and rebook flights at no charge. You just have to make sure that the price didn’t go up.
Here’s What I Don’t Know
The promotion appears to be targeted to those who took part in the GoForthWithJetBlue promotion. I don’t know what the result will be if you call and ask to be added, but it couldn’t hurt. The link in the email took me right to the JetBlue home page, so there does not appear to be a designated promotion page.
Nothing like a little competition to keep the TrueBlue points flowing. Be sure to read through the terms and conditions, but you may already be on your way to double points.
The problem is that you still end up flying JetBlue. Now, to be fair, I’ve heard all sort of GREAT things about “Mint,” and I have yet to fly it, so I cannot comment on that; AND JetBlue is certainly popular at its JFK home airport. If I lived in New York, or perhaps Boston, I’m sure I’d be flying JetBlue all the time . . . but living on the West Coast, I have little reason to do so. Sure, I took advantage of their points match with Virgin America and earned 75,000 points — my wife earned 30,000 — by flying form the SF Bay Area down to Long Beach. Simply put, I was shocked at how disappointing those experiences were. Both flights rank in the lowest 20% of all flights I have ever taken!
Our goal is the accrue enough points to fly Mint SFO-JFK and see if that experience changes our mind re: JetBlues, but nothing they have done so far makes me want to fly JetBlue over Virgin America.
You’re absolutely right. JetBlue simply does not have the presence on the west coast that they do on the east coast.
As for your experience there, I’m sorry to hear that, particularly since my trips on JetBlue are usually above average. I hope you just had a ba crew, rather than a systematic difference between the coasts.