40% Bonus When You Transfer Amex Points To JetBlue [Targeted]

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American Express has launched a 40% bonus for transfers between Membership Rewards and JetBlue’s True Blue program but no one should be rushing over to the American Express website to see if they’ve been targeted for this promotion without reading one very important warning first.

If you’ve been targeted for this transfer bonus it’s possible that this is a promotion that will appear just once in your Membership Rewards account before disappearing (not to be seen again) once you navigate away from the promotion page.

I was alerted to the transfer bonus on my Amex account’s homepage under the ‘suggested for you’ section towards the top right of the page…….but not everybody may see this appear on their Amex homepage even if they’ve been targeted for the bonus.

When I head over to the membership Rewards points transfer section the promotion doesn’t appear to have an end date…

…and the ‘special offer terms’ include this line:

“If you return to redeem points later, this offer may no longer be available“

I’ve let Amex time me out and, when I log back in, the offer is still showing….but this may not be the case for everyone…so be careful.

If you think this bonus may work for you (I’ll show the math in a moment) you should only head over to the Amex points transfer pages once you know you’ll be making a transfer.

Is This Bonus Worth Considering?

40% is just about as big a bonus as I remember seeing for transfers between American Express and JetBlue so it probably doesn’t get much better than this…but that doesn’t mean that it’s a great deal.

In this promotion 250 Membership Rewards points convert over to 280 True Blue points so the transfer ratio is 1 to 1.12.

On a randomly selected day this is what the one-way cash fares look like for travel between Los Angeles and New York…

…and this is what the award costs look like for the same flights:

For Economy Class bookings these flights offer between 1.30 cents and 1.45 cents of value for True Blue points while Mint (Business Class) bookings offer approximately 1.0 cent of value for each True Blue point used (two other routes that I checked offered similar values).

At a transfer ratio of 1 to 1.12, I could use any Membership Points I transfer over to JetBlue at a value of between 1.46 cents and 1.62 cents each which, considering I value Membership Rewards points at a conservative 1.5 cents each, means that I can get a decent deal in certain circumstances….as long as I’m not booking Mint fares.

Anyone who holds the JetBlue Plus credit card (which I don’t) will get a 10% refund on all their points redemptions and that will make the math even more favorable.

Thoughts

There’s value to be had here but it’s not value which excites me very much.

If you’re looking to use your points balances to save some cash then this could be a transfer bonus that allows you to that reasonably economically…but it’s not a fantastic/amazing/wonderful deal. It’s good….and then only in certain circumstances.

Personally, I’d prefer to use my Amex points for transfers to Singapore Airlines (for good premium cabin redemptions) or to the British Airways Executive Club (for great value short-haul redemptions) rather than transfer them to an airline program where the points are tied to the cash value of the fare.

Bottom Line

If you’re a fan of JetBlue and you need to top up your True Blue balance then this may be a good way to do that. This bonus may also be a good way of letting your Membership Rewards points save you some cash on any upcoming Economy Class flights you may have.

If, however, you collect Membership Rewards points with a view to booking great premium cabin fares then this probably isn’t a transfer bonus you should be considering….even if it’s one of the best JetBlue transfer bonuses we’ve seen for quite a while.

Have you been targeted for a JetBlue transfer bonus? If you have, what percentage bonus does your account show?