JetBlue Business Mastercard® Review

The JetBlue Business Mastercard® is a Barclaycard-backed small business credit card with a travel rewards program that favors frequent JetBlue flyers, regular restaurant diners, and business owners and employees who spend heavily at office supply stores.

The JetBlue Business Card also has a solid sign-up bonus and a nice lineup of perks and benefits designed to make the JetBlue flying experience more comfortable, convenient, and affordable. It’s especially attractive for heavy spenders, thanks to automatic TrueBlue Mosaic status for cardholders who spend more than $50,000 per calendar year.

The JetBlue Business Card is definitely a great card for high-flying business owners who live and work near JetBlue hubs. If you fly JetBlue often, but don’t own your own business, consider the consumer-oriented JetBlue Plus Card, which is very similar to the JetBlue Business. If you’re an occasional JetBlue flyer without a business to your name, the basic JetBlue Card is likely a better fit.

Key Features

Sign-up Bonus

For a limited time only, you earn 50,000 bonus TrueBlue points when you spend at least $1,000 within 90 days of opening your account. That’s generally enough to redeem for a free long-haul round-trip domestic fare (for example, from New York to Seattle).

For a limited time, when you add an authorized user who then makes a purchase with their card in the first 90 days, you’ll earn an additional 10,000 bonus points.

Earning TrueBlue Points

For every $1 you spend on JetBlue purchases, the JetBlue Business Card earns unlimited 6 TrueBlue points. For every $1 you spend on restaurant and office supply store purchases, you earn unlimited 2 points. All other purchases earn unlimited 1 point per $1 spent, with no restrictions or caps.

Redeeming TrueBlue Points

You can redeem your accumulated TrueBlue points for one-way and round-trip award flights on JetBlue and its partner, Hawaiian Airlines.

Point values are tied to redemption flights’ dollar cost, meaning the value of each point is fixed at approximately $0.015, and the exact number of points required for a redemption varies based on the date, time of day, flight distance, customer demand, and other factors. For example, a one-way flight from Boston to Los Angeles requires anywhere from 8,600 to more than 25,000 points, based on a constant point value of approximately $0.015 apiece. For long-haul domestic round-trip flights, such as from Boston to Los Angeles, it’s a good idea to budget 50,000 or more TrueBlue points.

You can also redeem TrueBlue points for JetBlue Getaways vacation packages. These packages frequently include non-airfare expenses, such as rental cars and lodging. Finally, you can redeem TrueBlue points for non-travel items, such as newspaper and magazine subscriptions, but these options typically undervalue points by a substantial margin relative to travel.

JetBlue gives you an additional incentive to redeem for travel: every travel redemption earns a 10% TrueBlue points bonus. For example, a 20,000-point redemption earns a 2,000-point bonus.

Account Anniversary Bonus

As long as your credit card account remains open and in good standing, you receive 5,000 bonus TrueBlue points on your account anniversary.

Statement Credit for Getaways Package

Each purchase of a JetBlue Getaways vacation package worth $100 or more, up to 1 package per year, earns you a $100 statement credit.

TrueBlue Mosaic Qualification

If you spend at least $50,000 on your JetBlue Business Card within a calendar year, you automatically qualify for JetBlue’s coveted TrueBlue Mosaic loyalty status. Moasic entitles you to:

• Free flight cancellations and changes
• First and second bags free for the Mosaic status holder and traveling companions
• Early boarding on ticketed flights
• Complimentary alcoholic beverages in flight
• An additional 15,000 bonus TrueBlue points as soon as you qualify

Under normal circumstances, you must earn at least 15,000 TrueBlue flight base points or 30 JetBlue flight segments plus 12,000 TrueBlue flight base points to qualify for Mosaic status.

JetBlue Travel Benefits

This card comes with a host of benefits for JetBlue travelers, including 50% discounts on certain in-flight purchases (such as food, beverages, and entertainment) and a free first checked bag for the cardholder and up to 3 companions.

Business Benefits

Though this card doesn’t have a ton of high-value business perks, it does have some practical benefits that make life easier for business owners and managers. These include:

• No-cost employee cards
• Flexible employee card controls, including customizable credit limits, single-purchase authorization, and cash access restrictions
• Consolidated statements that break out spending by card

Important Fees

There is a $99 annual fee, but no foreign transaction fee. Balance transfers cost the greater of $5 or 3% of the transferred amount. Cash advances cost the greater of $10 or 3% of the advanced amount, while late and returned payments both cost up to $39.

Credit Required

This card requires excellent credit. Any significant credit issues in your recent past are likely to disqualify your application.

Advantages

1. Solid, Easily Attainable Sign-Up Bonus. The JetBlue Business Card’s sign-up bonus is pretty generous and relatively easy to attain. For a limited time, when you spend at least $1,000 within 90 days, you get 50,000 TrueBlue points. That’s good enough for many domestic round-trip routes, and requires just a fraction of the spending (in some cases, as little as one-quarter) as comparable bonuses offered by other business travel cards. Plus, you’ll get 10,000 bonus points when you add an authorized user (employee card) who then makes a purchase to your card.
2. Deep In-Flight Discounts. JetBlue’s 50% discount on in-flight food, drink, and entertainment is a great deal for business travelers looking to relax while in the air. It’s better than comparable benefits offered by competitors such as American Express’s Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card, which discounts in-flight purchases by 20%.
3. Redemption Bonus Every Time You Redeem. Every time you redeem TrueBlue points for award travel, you get a point bonus equal to 10% of the redemption amount – for example, 3,000 points on a 30,000-point redemption. Depending on how many points you redeem at once, the bonus alone could be enough (or nearly enough) to earn a free one-way flight. Many airline cards don’t bother to offer redemption bonuses.
4. Heavy Spenders Attain Mosaic Status. Frequent JetBlue flyers and heavy spenders should have little problem attaining Mosaic status with this card. You need to spend at least $50,000 per year, which is definitely doable if you use this as your primary card or have several employees as authorized users. It’s worth stretching to reach this mark, as Mosaic benefits can be valuable – they include priority boarding, free changes and cancellations, complimentary in-flight beverages, and 2 free checked bags, among other things.
5. Cardholder Anniversary Bonus Can Be Valuable. This card’s 5,000-point anniversary bonus is almost enough to earn you a free domestic one-way flight, and can certainly push you over the edge if you’re just short on points for a particular route. It alone goes a long way toward defraying the card’s $99 annual fee, and it doesn’t require a minimum spend.
6. Accelerated Earnings on Office Supply and Restaurant Purchases. JetBlue Business singles out spending in 2 business-friendly categories: dining out and office supplies, both of which double the 1-point-per-$1-spent baseline. If you frequently wine and dine clients, or buy lots of supplies for your home office, don’t forget to use this card.

Disadvantages

1. Charges an Annual Fee. JetBlue Business has a $99 annual fee. If you don’t fly often and don’t use this as your primary credit card, you’ll likely struggle to offset this recurring charge.
2. No Alliance Redemptions. JetBlue does have a global network of airline partners, but it’s difficult to impossible to redeem TrueBlue points on cosigned flights, with the sole exception of Hawaiian Airlines. If you’re traveling to a region that isn’t directly served by JetBlue, including pretty much anywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere, you need to use dollars instead of JetBlue points. Needless to say, long-haul international flights tend to be really expensive when you’re paying in cash.
3. Point Requirements for Redemption Vary Widely. JetBlue is one of the few U.S. airlines that fixes the value of its points at a near-constant rate – roughly $0.015 apiece, regardless of the published fare cost or route. (In practice, the actual value ranges a few cents to either side, but $0.015 is a good benchmark for conversion calculations.) In other words, point requirements for award travel are directly tied to fares’ dollar costs, with more expensive fares requiring more points. Whereas a $100 JetBlue flight requires approximately 7,330 TrueBlue points, a $400 flight requires approximately 4 times that amount. Since fares can vary dramatically based on demand, date, time of day, and other factors, this arrangement can really frustrate award travel planning. Most other airlines, with the notable exception of Southwest, have flat redemption thresholds within specified geographic areas and fare classes. With these airlines, a domestic economy flight always requires the same number of points, no matter the dollar cost. That makes it a whole lot easier to plan for award travel.
4. Few Value-Added Benefits for Business Owners. Though this card has some practical benefits for business owners (such as free employee cards and customizable limits on their use), it doesn’t offer any business benefits with tangible monetary value. By contrast, the American Express OPEN family of business credit cards offers the powerful OPEN Savings benefit, which is good for 5% discounts on spending with participating merchants.

Final Word

If you and your employees fly JetBlue with any regularity, you’ll find the JetBlue Business Mastercard® to be worthwhile – or, at the very least, worth a closer look. And if you and your team spend heavily enough to earn automatic Mosaic status each year, this card’s annual fee is likely to seem a pittance.

Then again, not all travel is created equal. Some business travelers like to flit from city to city in the utmost comfort. They look forward to being waited on hand and foot by airline and airport staffers. If you have a weakness for high-end perks and creature comforts, JetBlue Business probably isn’t your card. You’ll need to look to truly exclusive travel cards, such as the Business Platinum Card from American Express, whose complimentary airport lounge access and generous airline fee credit go a long way.