Don’t buy Jetblue points (asthejoeflies #2)

asthejoeflies

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Don’t buy Jetblue points

If you’re reading this you probably already know, but just in case: buying JetBlue points is a terrible value. I love the airline and just spoke on a bonus episode of Observation Deck about how I maximize Mosaic status but I’d also prefer the airline not insult us.

I just received an offer in my inbox to buy 30,000 Trueblue points for about $513 after taxes and such. That’s a cost of about 1.7 cents per point. For reference, I consider 1.5 cents per point a good redemption on JetBlue. And if you want to fly Mint you’ll only get 1 cpp, so uh…bad deal. In fact buying JetBlue points is almost always universally a bad deal.
Don’t buy any points?

Honestly, I’m hard pressed to think of many good scenarios to buy points at all. Notable exceptions are topping off an account to make a redemption happen or perhaps buying Alaska miles to fly Cathay or Japan Airlines up front. Other than that? Buying points mostly feels like a scam to me. Be especially careful when bloggers are posting about points “sales” as some will receive a commission if you go through the links on their sites.

I’m guessing there are some who MS at extremely low costs and for them it might make sense to buy miles; that’s just not me in my current situation.

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