It was a busy week for JetBlue last week as they announced several changes and new initiatives. Checked baggage fees were increased, several subscription plans were launched, and they also introduced the ability to redeem your TrueBlue points for various different fees that they charge.
Increased checked baggage fees
JetBlue charges different checked baggage fees depending on whether you’re traveling during peak or off-peak times, as well as whether you’re paying for your bags more or less than 24 hours before departure.
During off-peak travel dates, your first checked bag will now cost an extra $4, while peak dates will cost you $9 more. That means that during off-peak dates, you’re looking at paying $39 for your first checked bag if paying more than 24 hours before your flight, or $49 within 24 hours of departure. For peak dates, it’s $49 when paying for the bag more than 24 hours before your flight and $59 after that.
Here’s the new checked baggage fee pricing structure; first when paying more than 24 hours before your flight and then when paying within 24 hours of departure.
This makes JetBlue status and its Plus, Premier, and Business credit cards even more valuable seeing as those all include at least the first checked bag free. For everyone else wanting to check a bag, they’ll truly feel blue.
TrueBlue Subscriptions
Another development is that JetBlue has launched a new subscription model called TrueBlue Subscriptions. There are three tiers that award different amounts of points each month, as well as other benefits depending on the tier.
Through April 14, 2026, you can earn five bonus Tiles towards status when subscribing to a Points Adventurer or Points Trailblazer tier.
You can subscribe on an annual or monthly basis, with annual pricing being about 7.7% cheaper than subscribing on a monthly basis over the course of a year.
For the Points Traveler level at annual pricing, you’re effectively buying TrueBlue points for 1.2 cents per point. Our Reasonable Redemption Value for JetBlue’s points is 1.3 cents per point, so this level certainly isn’t a bad deal, although it’s not particularly compelling either.
The pricing for the other two tiers is a little curious. For Points Adventurer, you’re buying their points for 1.5 cents per point; given the mostly fixed value of JetBlue’s points, that’s not a good deal. At that level you do also get an extra two points per dollar spent on JetBlue operated flights, so you’d need to spend $3,000 per year on flights to get an effective rate of 1.2 cents per point like the base Points Traveler level.
As for the top Points Trailblazer tier, it’s most certainly not worth subscribing for the points alone. That’s because over the course of a year you’d receive 30,000 points and you’d pay $750 if paying on an annual basis. That’s a cost of 2.5 cents per point which is appalling value.
Where Points Trailblazer might make sense is for its other benefits. For someone who flies a lot with JetBlue on cash fares, earning an additional three points per dollar could add up. Getting a 10% rebate on award redemptions could prove to be valuable too, especially with it stacking with the 10% award redemption rebate that JetBlue Plus, Premier, and Business cardholders receive for a total of 20% back.
If you’re considering subscribing on a monthly basis, be aware that there’s a minimum commitment of six months, after which you can cancel on a monthly basis.
It looks like JetBlue is utilizing Points.com’s services for payment of the subscription plan. That’s disappointing because it presumably means that it won’t be an eligible expense for airline fee reimbursements on the American Express Platinum Card® and Business Platinum Card®, nor for the flight credit on the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card. You will hopefully earn rewards when clicking through from a shopping portal though.
Redeem TrueBlue points for fees and Extras
The final change is that JetBlue now allows you to redeem points for various fees and Extras such as seat assignment, checked bags, pet fees, etc.
Unfortunately the redemption rate appears to be a fixed 1 cent per point value for the various redemption options which is suboptimal.
You can get better value from your points by redeeming them for award flights, so this option is only worth considering when paying for a non-expensive fee and have a low number of points that’d otherwise go unused. Having said that, JetBlue points never expire, so it’s not like there’s an urgent need to redeem them immediately, so for most people it’ll be best to never redeem your points in this way.
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If you know someone over there at JetBlue can you tell them to please fix their website and their app! Currently it’s either: you use all points or you use all money for a flight! It won’t let you decide to use for example 10000 points then pay the rest in cash. So if you got 2 people and you want to use some points and use your JetBlue card to take advantage of the free checked bag, WELL you’re stuck paying for both of those fights with all of your points. Makes no sense
JetBlue does offer Cash + Points rates. I think you might have to be logged in to your account to see them, so maybe that’s why they’ve not shown up for you? https://www.jetblue.com/help/cash-plus-points
You can also get a free checked bag if you’re a cardholder even if you don’t pay with the JetBlue card https://frequentmiler.com/free-checked-bags-via-credit-card-complete-guide/#Summary_Info-6
Yes, I’m always logged into my account, unfortunately there’s a problem with the system. I did contact customer service and they say it’s “a known technical issue” but it’s been like that for a couple weeks. If you see different and go through the whole process at the very end if you can slide and pick more points or less points, PLEASE let me know.
And yes I’m a JetBlue plus MasterCard holder my point (no pun intented) is until they get the site fixed with the Money/Points situation, if I make a flight and I have two people because I want them to get a free checked bag (with my JetBlue Plus card) it uses 100% of my points OR 100% money for both people, depending on which one I selected at the beginning there’s no way to determine if I only want to use heck 500 points
Any word on when the match up will occur with United for benefits?
Anyone actually have this card?
Seriously, unless you are at JFK T5 like once a week using that new lounge, this isn’t gonna be worth it.
Thanks Stephen.
Speaking of Jetblue’s being busy, if you haven’t yet heard, you or Nick will want to cover the brand new PR about the enhanced JetBlue Premier CC that dropped today: https://news.jetblue.com/latest-news/press-release-details/2026/JetBlue-and-Barclays-Enhance-Airlines-Popular-Premier-Card-with-New-Benefits-and-Expanded-Rewards/default.aspx .. Barclays hasn’t updated their landing page yet.
The card went from terrible for most to interesting for loyalists.
Thank you! We just received an email from their PR agency about this – definitely makes the card far more interesting. I’ve emailed them back a long list of questions as there’s a lot of information that’s not been included in the press release about how the Companion Passes in particular will work.
Well done!
You’re absolutely right that there’s a long list of omissions in that PR. I was confident you guys would be on the case. 🙂
We always appreciate being given a heads up about stuff like this though just in case.
Did the press release clarify if the trueblue travel credit would change to be easier to use?
It’s completely useless now since it is actually 6 different $50 credits each time you spend $250. Hoping they change it to a single $300 credit.
One of the questions I’ve asked is if anything has changed regarding that credit. The press release description makes it sound like it’s an identical benefit to what’s already on the card, but it’s listed as a new or updated benefit, so it feels like something might’ve changed – I just have no idea what that might be right now.
Also the wording of the tiles mention it happening at the beginning of the calendar year. Does that mean you don’t get it if you get the card mid year and have to wait until January? If this looks good, I might PC my JetBlue Plus card to the Premier.
I suspect you’ll get the Tiles in 2026 as soon as the benefit is live later this spring.