Blue's News - Nov 20

What's new with JetBlue

• LifeHacker has a great post on surviving flying for the holidays. From the TSA to the arrival gate, they've got you covered and the comments add in some useful color as well.

• BlueTales offers a look behind the scenes at their Veterans Career Expo in Long Island. It's this Thursday, November 21st from 12-4PM. You can sign up for it at EventBrite for free.
• "Our 2nd annual Veterans' Career Expo is geared toward veterans and their spouses interested in getting a better idea of whatcareer opportunities are available at JetBlue. Representatives from several JetBlue departments (including Finance, Inflight, JetBlue University, Marketing, Operations and many more) will be available to answer questions about their team/function. You will also have the opportunity to speak with veterans who currently work for JetBlue.This session is not specific to any role in particular. For those interested specifically in pilot career information, please register only for the pilot session at: https://pilotvets.eventbrite.com"

• Another post from LifeHacker on bringing an emergency travel pack with you - for the times when life's discomforts start to make travel a horrible experience. Bringing an extra charger, empty water bottle, and magazines are just a few of the items on their list to keep you and those around you happy.

• Until 12/31/13, Jet Blue is offering up to 50% bonus points for all gifted or purchased denominations. The bonus levels are:


• Buy between 5,000 - 9,500 get 20% bonus points
• Buy between 10,000 - 19,500 to get 30% bonus points 
• Buy between 20,000 - 29,500 to get 40% bonus points
• Buy 30,000 to get 50% bonus points

Family Pooling by JetBlue

JetBlue Brings Family Pooling to TrueBlue

Jet Blue is introducing a revolutionary new feature to their reward points - free point pooling within a family. The best part? You don't even have to be related!

A "family" is defined as two adults over the age of 21 (who don't have to be related) and up to five children under the age of 21. Members of a family can see the total reward points being used in the family and once a goal is reached, the "head of household" (one of the 21+ adults) can redeem the entire family's points towards a trip for everyone.

When setting up a family, the head of household can also make a one-time point contribution to another member and set up a yearly contribution amount as well for years thereafter. This helps to consolidate points for not even just cheap, but, well, free - which no one else does. In most cases points transfers are prohibitively costly so it's not even worth doing.

These features are not rivaled by any other airline and create a truly easy way for couples, friends, and families to enjoy travel together without worrying about ridiculous exchange fees or worrying about who has what points on their frequent flyer account.

I plan to set one up soon and will do a followup post once I have some time to explore it. Sound off if you are planning to sign up for family pooling and check the video below for some more information. 

 - John

Gilt Trip Badge

Shop with Gilt City and Earn Points

One of the affiliate badges that you can earn through JetBlue's TrueBlue program is through Gilt City, flash sale site that is marketed as a high-end version of Groupon for mostly apparel but also city-specific experiences and random lifestyle items as well. 

As with many sites of its kind, the value in items for sale can vary and such things as shipping and returns can often be nebulous ventures. However, I recently saw a deal for a restaurant I had been planning to visit with the misses and took an opportunity to grab the deal - and the badge. The dinner for two deal to Essex in NYC was just too good to pass up!

I'm still waiting for my badge to validate, but the Gilt Trip badge necessitates that you sign up for Gilt City through JetBlue's link and spend a minimum of $50 on a purchase which will net you 1,000 TrueBlue points. In addition to that, each dollar spent will earn five TrueBlue point for the next six months.  If the site turns out to be useful, it's a really great deal considering you don't need a branded credit card to be receiving 5pts/dollar after you sign up with the affiliate link.

This will be my first partner JetBlue badge that I've targeted specifically, have you gotten the Gilt Trip badge yet? How long did it take to validate? JetBlue has stated it can take well over a month but I'm hoping for it to come through a bit sooner than that. I'll be updating once the points come through.

 - John

Guide to Blue Badges Part II

TrueBlue Badges Part II

In the introduction to badges, I detailed how to sign up and start getting some of your first badges and over 1,000 TrueBlue points in just a few minutes. This next installment will cover earning your next 4 badges, making a total of 10, and getting to level 3. 

The Next Four Badges

The next four badges aren't a whole lot harder than the first six and you can do them without the help of anyone else (later on you'll need some friends' on social media) and without spending any money. The badges we're going after this time are the Recruiter, Leader, On the Map, and In A Badge Mood. What I really love about these is that JetBlue really makes an effort to make them accessible, fun, easy, and logical. Again, you'll need some basic social media accounts to take advantage of these, but that's it!

That's a total of 10 badges unlocked without a lot of effort with almost 2,000 TrueBlue points to show for it. From here on out the badges will take a little more work to acquire and levels will come into play as restrictions for earning better badges, but there are still a lot of ways to score more points without having to fly a single mile. Check out the next installment for more info on the remaining badges that can get you free miles without spending a cent!

- John

Guide to Blue Badges - Part I

Introduction to Badges

One of the interesting aspects of JetBlue's loyalty program is the badge system. You can earn badges and levels much like in FourSquare and similar check-in apps by performing social media tasks, being a customer of partner companies, or just flying per usual. These can net you free points towards JetBlue flights and easily push you over the 5k or 10k needed for a free flight! I'll go over the basics to get you started in this post and later installments will be guides to getting the most free points possible.

Signing Up

Signing up is easy - just head to the JetBlue badges page and login with your TrueBlue account.

Getting Badges

Your first badges are going to be pretty easy - you can get over 1,000 TrueBlue points for just a few minutes of work! Here are the first badges you'll be earning to be 20% of the way towards a free flight:

The first badges that are available to earn.

The First Badges

There you go, 1050 points for just a few minutes of work. There are many more badges to be unlocked that I will cover later, but this will get you started and on your way to racking up those extra points. 

- John