Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
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JetBlue is offering fares as low as $49 for Cyber Monday. The $49 fares seem to mainly be East Coast to East or West Coast to West but there are some other good values as well. Transcons are $69-99 between San Francisco or Los Angeles and the East Coast, and there are some desirable $94-99 tickets (such as LAX to Puerto Vallarta).
Pricing is valid for Tues/Wed travel from January through the end of March, but there’s still some very good fares on other days as well. The cheapest fares book into Blue Basic, which charges extra for carry-on, checked bag and seat selection. “Upgrading” to Blue is ~$25-35 more, which provides free cancellation, carry-on and advance seat selection.
There are also excellent deals to be found by using JetBlue points. True Blue awards book into regular economy directly and, in almost all examples I found, it provides 1.6-2.0 cents per point value, well over our Reasonable Redemption Value for JetBlue points of 1.33 cents each. A flight from LAX-Puerto Vallarta is $94 one-way in basic or $124 for regular economy. The points price? 4,100 True Blue Points + $43 with carry-on, free cancellation and seat selection included. That’s almost 2 cents per point value when compared to the Blue fare.
The Deal
- JetBlue is offering fares as low as $49 for travel booked through 11/29/24. Includes many international destinations.
- Award booking in regular economy starting at 3900 True Blue points
Key Terms
- Must book by 11/29
- Tues/Wed travel only
- Valid for Jan/March travel
Quick Thoughts
I started out looking at this sale without being terribly enthused. The prices are decent, but I’m not a big fan of booking without the option to cancel or have a carry-on. If you want to take a small backpack to Miami from New York for the weekend it would be ok…but the fares are only Tues/Wed, so you’re locked into midweek travel. The additional cost to get Blue with a carry-on and free cancellation makes some of these flights worth looking at, but the more I dug into it, the more I found some interesting nuggets, especially using True Blue points (cash fares are Blue Basic, points prices are for regular economy):
- Boston (BOS)-LAX- $69/6,700
- Fort Lauderdale-Quito, Ecuador (UIO) – $129/6,900
- NYC-Fort Lauderdale (FLL) or Tampa (TPA) – $64/5,900
- JFK-Grand Cayman (GCM) – $119/8,800
- JFK-Guatemala City (GUA) – $109/7,700
- LAX-Puerto Vallarta (PVR) – $94/4,100
JetBlue partners with Citi, Chase and AMEX so points are very easy to come by. If mid-week travel works for you between January through March this sale could be worth poking around a bit.
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This may not work for me. Do you recommend Jet Blue? Don’t they have a high cancellation rate?
You know, I hardly ever fly JetBlue, but that last time I did, they left us stranded on St. Maarten. 🙂 I know quite a few East Coasters who love them.
Wow…..that is crazy, to say the least! Thanks for sharing your experience!
Keep up the great work on your posting!