There’s some mildly good news today as Capital One has added JetBlue as a transfer partner. The downside though is that the ability to transfer your miles to the TrueBlue program can be ignored as things currently stand as it has a transfer ratio that’s even worse than Amex’s.
As you can see, Capital One miles can now be transferred to JetBlue on a 1,000:600 basis. That’s not great, especially considering TrueBlue points have a (somewhat) fixed value like Southwest, so you can’t really get outsized value from them.
Capital One is marketing this as cardholders having the ability to earn an effective 1.2 JetBlue points per dollar spent on its lineup of cards that earn 2x on all purchases. That’s certainly true(blue), but those 2x cards can transfer to most of its other partners on a 1:1 basis. Why would you therefore earn with the expectation of transferring at an effective 1.2x rate to a program with a fixed value versus transferring at an effective 2x rate to a program where you can get outsized value?
We peg the Reasonable Redemption Value of JetBlue points at 1.2cpp (cents per point). Some people value them at 1.5cpp, but that’s basically as high as it gets. If you spend a dollar on a Capital One card earning 2x, transferring to JetBlue would therefore get you a maximum of 1.8cpp of value ($0.015 * 0.6 transfer ratio * 2). Every dollar of spend could otherwise be redeemed for 2cpp towards travel purchases, so transferring to JetBlue makes zero sense – you’d be better off simply buying a cash ticket with JetBlue on your Capital One card and redeeming your Capital One miles against that charge. Please don’t do that as you’d be forgoing the opportunity to get outsized value by transferring to a different travel partner, but the math shows why it’s such a bad idea to transfer Capital One miles to JetBlue as things currently stand.
The main exception would be if Capital One offered a very generous transfer bonus. However, it would have to be a very generous transfer bonus. To get the transfer ratio at parity of 1:1, the bonus would have to be 66.67%. I don’t believe we’ve ever seen Capital One offering anything close to that to any of its transfer partners, so there’s no reason to think they’ll do that with JetBlue.
Another minor exception would be if you need to book an award flight and you’re 600 TrueBlue points short for your redemption. In that instance, it might make sense to transfer over 1,000 Capital One miles to top up your account.
It’s also not like Capital One is the only game in town when it comes to transferring to JetBlue. American Express Membership Rewards transfer on a 1,000:800 basis which is itself poor. Amex has at least run occasional transfer bonuses to JetBlue though which boost that to 1,000:1,000.
If you have transferable points with Chase or Citi though, those represent a better option for JetBlue as Ultimate Rewards and ThankYou points can be transferred on a 1,000:1,000 basis. Note that with Citi, ThankYou points only transfer at that ratio if you have a Prestige, Strata Premier or AT&T Access More card; other cardholders can only transfer at a 1,000:800 ratio.
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Almost 0% chance I’ll ever use this but nice to have the option.
Hard to believe an LCC was able to demand this kind of transfer ratio from C1… Wild.
That Amex also has a low ratio says that JetBlue is likely not offering great deals on this. Citi and Chase have shown more propensity to deliver bigger value on these transfers (Chase with Hyatt; Citi with LHW, Choice, iPrefer and EVA). That Capital One also offers less in the transfer bonus category also tells us that they are much more concerned with the profitability of each transfer offer.
I do think Citi has been the clear mover over the last 12 months in shoring up point value with the new transfer partners and quite a few transfer bonuses. I am bullish on them.
Same. Especially with AA being as added as a partner down the road. Problem is TYP are hard to rack up compared to UR/MR
Sad statement by C1 on the value of their points!
After the Turkish and vacasa devals, cap1 miles ain’t what they used to be. Especially if you aren’t a MLB fan
Transferred my c1 to Qatar for 8.6cpp bos to Tokyo. Seemed decent.