Tag: JetBlue Plus

Why JetBlue Offering Non-Refundable Fares Isn’t A Big Deal

JetBlue finally announced the details of their basic economy fare called “Blue Basic.” This wasn’t a surprise as they announced about a year ago that these fares were coming. Now that we can see what these fares include or don’t include, we know how bad the changes are.

For now, it’s hard to tell, since JetBlue isn’t offering Blue Basic fares on all flights. Until we see the difference in prices between the two fares, it will be difficult to judge how painful this change will be.

It’s easy to look through the prism of a frequent flyer when looking at these changes. Blue Basic fares are terrible for frequent JetBlue Mosaic flyers because they’ll lose all of their benefits, including the ability to cancel and change flights with no fees while requiring them to pay for a seat assignment.

But what do these changes mean for an infrequent traveler? Do they care if a fare is non-refundable?

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Credit Cards Are Adding Cell Phone Coverage But Benefits Aren’t All The Same

It used to be that just one or two of my credit cards offered any type of coverage for cell phones. When phones were less expensive and U.S. mobile providers were subsidizing the full cost, having insurance on your phone wasn’t viewed as being important. Now that more popular phones cost around or over the $1,000 range, and repair prices vary from $100 for a cracked screen to several hundred dollars for more severe damage, having a policy where you only need to pay a $50 deductible is an appealing option.

Customers were paying for their own coverage but the banks saw an opportunity to differentiate their product by offering Cell Phone Protection as a perk of their cards. Offering this benefit requires paying your cell phone bill with that card, so for the bank this is an excellent way for them to get you to put your recurring cell phone bill onto their card for month after month.

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How A Stupid Mistake Cost Me Thousands of Points

You live and you learn. That’s what we’re told whenever we make a mistake. It still doesn’t make the error any easier to swallow. Fortunately, most mistakes you make when dealing with points and miles will cost you extra points or prevent you from maximizing your earnings. In the big picture, not a huge deal but you still regret the mistake.

So when I realized I made a mistake when booking a flight with JetBlue which cost me 3,000 points, I beat myself up for about 10 minutes.

Triple Facepalm

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How To Top Up Your JetBlue TrueBlue Points To Make An Award Booking

Using your points to book an award ticket is the payoff for all the hard work you put in to earn those points. Redeeming JetBlue points for flights is relatively easy. The price of an award ticket is based on the cash price of the ticket. As long as there is a flight available, you can book it but you’ll burn through points faster booking expensive flights. JetBlue does also allow you to redeem points to fly in their Mint First Class cabin, when available, but none of those routes leave from Orlando so we’ve never seen a plane with the fancy seats.

All of my JetBlue redemptions have been for flights in the back of the plane. I’ve almost run through the 60,000 points I earned when I signed up for the JetBlue Plus card but I have enough points for one more trip. Or should I say I ALMOST have enough points for one more trip.

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