I didn’t see this coming! JetBlue is offering 350,000 points plus 25 years of status to anyone who flies JetBlue to 25 destinations by the end of this year. Stephen published the full details here. If we hadn’t already announced our 2025 team challenge, 100K Vacay, I’m sure this would have been it. Within our team, I know that Nick is interested in pursuing the JetBlue deal. He’s talking about finding the cheapest way to accomplish it with his whole family. I have no doubt that it’s possible to come out well ahead by sticking with cheap multi-stop flights. I also think that it would be torturous to do so. I’m thinking about it differently… Can my wife and I do this in style? Is it possible to cobble together enough fun trips by the end of the year so that we’ll actually enjoy the process?
Why bother?
JetBlue has been suffering financially, so it might seem ridiculous to pursue lots of points and many years of elite status with an airline that might not even exist five years from now. Additionally, from my home airport (Detroit DTW), JetBlue only flies to two destinations: New York JFK and Boston BOS. Even if JetBlue was doing well, it could reasonably be considered insane to pursue points and status with an airline that has so few routes for us to fly. My thinking is this: if JetBlue gets bought by another airline, things might work out well. Let’s say United buys them, for example. If that happened, I think there’s a great chance that JetBlue miles would become United miles, and an OK chance that however many years of JetBlue elite status that is left would become that many years of United Premier Silver status. And, most importantly, this seems like a fun challenge!
JetBlue’s route network makes things difficult
As you can see above, JetBlue flies to a lot of places, but the vast majority of those flights are from/to either New York JFK, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, or Orlando. So, once you’ve added those hubs to your 25-destination collection, you’ll have to revisit them in order to get to new destinations. For me, flying out of Detroit, I would have to fly through JFK or Boston every single time unless I use another airline to position elsewhere.
Just for fun, I tried to build an itinerary to see if it’s possible to hit 25 destinations in a single epic trip without any backtracking. I didn’t succeed. I was able to come up with an 17 destination trip, though. And, I’m sure it’s possible to squeeze in a couple more. You could probably get to 25 destinations if you slightly relax the “no backtracking” rule that I enforced on myself. Note, though, that I don’t know if this is really possible since some of these flights end in October and others start around then…
7 Destinations thanks to trips already planned
My wife and I have three trips to Europe and two trips to Buffalo that we plan to take during the eligible window for this promo (i.e. by the end of this year). If we fly at least in one direction on JetBlue for each of those trips, it’s possible for us to get 7 qualifying destinations out them:
- New York, JFK: Easily obtained since it is on the way to or from most other JetBlue flights for us in Detroit.
- Boston: Also easily obtained as a way-point between Detroit and other destinations
- 3 European destinations: We would have to change our outbound plans for each trip to fly from JFK or Boston to Europe, but could return as originally planned. Ideally I’d find ways to book JetBlue Mint Business Class cheap enough for it to make sense. As I’ve written before, JetBlue Mint is really nice!
- Buffalo: We could fly one-way to Buffalo (via JFK most likely) for one of our two trips there.
- Detroit: As long as any of the above trips include a leg on JetBlue that returns us to Detroit, then Detroit would count as a destination.
12 more via the Caribbean…
Once JFK and Boston and my home airport are accounted for, it’s not easy to rack up more than 1 destination per trip since most flights go to/from JFK and/or Boston. Plus, I’m not a fan of flying a lot of extra legs if we can help it.
One approach we can use is to separately position to somewhere in Florida then fly JetBlue from a Florida airport to a Caribbean destination or Mexico, then fly back to the same or another Florida city, then separately fly home. For example, we could position ourselves to Orlando, fly JetBlue round-trip Orlando to Punta Cana. That would add two destinations to our count (Orlando plus Punta Cana). Even better, we could take advantage of the few short-hop flights within the Caribbean. For example, we could fly Orlando to San Juan, then San Juan to Saint Croix, then retrace our steps home. That would give us three destinations in one trip.
Let’s assume that I can cobble together 2 separate Caribbean/Mexico weekends where we add 3 destinations to each one, and 3 more weekends where we add 2 destinations. That would give us 12 more qualifying destinations.
The final 6…
Let’s assume that the final 6 destinations will require 6 more trips. Based on where family and friends live, and places we might like to go anyway, I could imagine flying to each of the following JetBlue destinations from Detroit, either through JFK or through Boston. We would probably return home directly on a different airline, when possible:
- Providence, RI
- Hartford, CT
- Washington, DC
- Charleston, SC
- West Palm Beach, FL
- Fort Myers, FL
We could also do longer distance flights towards the west coast, but that will mean first going east to connect in New York or Boston each time and will obviously make the travel much longer.
Is this realistic?
Beyond the travel we already have planned, the outline above would require that we find 11 more opportunities to travel. With 6 months ahead of us, that’s just shy of 2 additional trips every month. My wife works full time and her job isn’t nearly as flexible as mine, so that would mean being away pretty much every other weekend through the end of the year. But it’s actually much worse than that because our existing travel plans already dictate that we’ll be away for 7 or 8 weekends. So, we would really be looking at being home only one weekend per month through the end of the year. That sounds exhausting.
Back to the drawing board…
If my wife doesn’t want to do this epic mileage run with me, then I could probably plan trips where I do nothing but fly around on JetBlue for a few days and I could rack up maybe 4 to 6 destinations on each trip. Or I could go plant myself for a while at a hub like New York or Fort Lauderdale and fly back and forth each day to different destinations. Nope. I don’t want to do that. That sounds miserable.
So… I’m not ready to admit defeat yet, but I’m not sure what my way forward will be. This is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that I’ll probably regret if I don’t do it. At the same time, I don’t really want to devote the rest of the year to JetBlue.
What do you think? Should I give up on this? Argue your case. Should I push forward? Give me ideas for how to make it happen with as little pain as possible. Please comment below.
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Is there any way to find all the JetBlue flights that are served by 2 or more different airports? That way you wouldn’t need to backtrack and would pick up multiple destinations.
According to ChatGPT:
Here are the JetBlue origin airports that serve two or more distinct destinations, listed by their airport codes:
• JFK (New York–John F. Kennedy)
• BOS (Boston–Logan)
• FLL (Fort Lauderdale)
• LAX (Los Angeles)
• EWR (Newark)
• LGA (New York–LaGuardia)
• MCO (Orlando)
• BDL (Bradley–Hartford)
Greg I’d consider crossing off more unique stops by self-positioning to some nearby airports (via one-way car rentals or other cheap flights/trains). For example it looks like Jet Blue has a Boston to Traverse City flight – while that is considerably further from Ann Arbor than Detroit, maybe you can tie it in with a stay at the Inn at Bay Harbor? Or get a cheap Delta flight back to Detroit. Jet Blue return flights to Cleveland and Chicago would you put similar distances from home. If you don’t mind the stops to visit those places along the way back that knocks another 3 destinations off your count.
There are similar opportunities to fly back from Florida on Jet Blue to a different destination if you live in the Northeast (flying back to Worcester instead of Boston, or Long Island instead of New York). But that seems rather circuitous for a return to Detroit.
Nantucket is also interesting for something like DTW->BOS->ACK->HPN/LGA all on Jet Blue and then take Delta direct back from either White Plains or LaGuardia. That would be another two destinations without as much flight time as one of the trips to Florida.
Fitting things in a weekend is where it gets tricky – I’m not sure how “fun” these extra stops or distances will be in only two days!
Curiously absent on this Jet Blue offer is a Founders Card membership.
Cancel your other “challenge.” This is it.
I agree. You can always do the other challenge next year. Win – win!
I have a strong feeling you or someone on this site will go for it regardless of what we think!
That being said, I think it’s really hard to justify this challenge unless you live near their hubs in the Northeast or Florida. Not living in those areas, I’ve only ever flown Jet Blue twice in my life, as it’s rarely the most convenient option.
Sure, they may get acquired by United or someone else, but they may just as easily not. Just look at Spirit and Frontier’s on again, off again disaster of a merger. I don’t think anyone should participate for the main hope of them getting acquired, as that’s just an expensive gamble.
I originally thought we’d bring the whole family and use lap infant tickets, but a JetBlue supervisor said those don’t count—so our toddler would need his own seat. Realistically, bringing them sounds way more stressful than going solo, and we don’t have anyone to watch him. With five family trips already left on the calendar for the rest of this year, it’s a tough sell.
That said, I’m based between FLL and PBI, I have the transferrable points available, and I work for myself—so if I stick to same-day trips (avoiding overnights,) I’d love to find a way to make this work without building too much resentment at home. The hardest part is convincing my wife to stay back with a toddler while I fly around chasing destinations. (Her best friend works for JetBlue… maybe that earns me some grace? Lol.)
I’d love any thoughts on how to pitch this in a way that doesn’t sound totally selfish or crazy. Also curious how others are thinking through the math—since you can’t book Blue Basic awards and still have to pay taxes/fees, there’s some cash outlay here. Even using points efficiently, is Mosaic 1 for 25 years and the 350K bonus really worth it after the points/cash spent? I usually book with points anyway, and rarely is JetBlue the best option with points. Also as you mentioned, if JetBlue does get acquired by United later, is it probable they’ll even honor decades of status?
Excited to hear what others are thinking—and good luck to everyone going for it! We should come up with a way to recognize/signal each other in-flight haha. Feels inevitable that a few of us would cross paths mid-challenge.
From what I’ve found, we should be able to do it for ‘free’ by booking awards flights. Just need to average less than 14,000 miles per new airport and the miles earned will equal miles spent.
I would try this on one big long never home multiple destination 3 week mad dash, EXCEPT my history with JetBlue and multiple hour delays or cancellations is that they rebook you AT BEST on a flight two days later and that would blow my whole schedule out of the water, because it would have to all be separate reservations.
I would go for it if that wasn’t a likely outcome
Do it , only if ur destination is good enough and have a luxury stay and can write a review about it. Otherwise dont waste money and energy on this silly
I think there is more risk than reward and I would pass on this one. Like you said Jet Blue may not even be around in 5 years from now. Then what?
I can understand why you don’t want to back track, but seems like hitting O’Hare, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Toronto or Nashville wouldn’t be too bad if you end up needing mileage runs. I am glad that you already picked a challenge for this year, I think I will learn a lot more from the blog with your current challenge than I would if 4 guys were all flying jet blue all over the place on the eastern US. Seems like with the SAS trip everyone learned new tips and tricks, how much will you really learn after 20+ essentially domestic flights and what readers can use that information, since it has a limited foot print. If you are already feeling like you can’t miss out on this, you better start rebooking your existing itineraries! Love the blog
I’m ready to go! Would be cool to bump into you on one of these flights. Enjoy your content.