In the recent post “Digging into JetBlue’s amazing status match for Delta elites” I wrote about the easy status match my wife and I had taken advantage of to go from high level Delta Medallion status to high level JetBlue Mosaic status. JetBlue Mosaic members get to choose from “Perks You Pick” and with this status match, JetBlue had chosen for us. Among the choices we both received was a 1 year FoundersCard Membership. In the previous post I had written that I had started my FoundersCard membership but that it wasn’t yet active at that time. Further, I wrote “I don’t expect to be overwhelmed (or simply whelmed) by FoundersCard, but maybe I’ll be surprised. I’ll let you know.”
Well… my FoundersCard membership is now active. To say that I’m underwhelmed is a gross understatement.
The first thing I saw when logging into FoundersCard was an ad inviting me to upgrade my membership to ELITE for “only $250 (a $745 savings)” for the first year. Then, the ELITE membership will renew for $995 after the first year.
Um, OK, so what’s the difference between what I got and ELITE? The same page had a handy chart showing that my “Blue” membership has limited access to standard benefits and to the FoundersCard Hotel Program. Meanwhile, the ELITE membership offers “premium access” to those things plus access to an elite concierge, plus access to premium travel benefits, plus access to premium lifestyle and business benefits, plus a free companion membership upon renewal, plus a stainless steel membership card, plus early bird access to new benefit announcements (note the wording: not early access to benefits, but to announcements), plus VIP dedicated phone & support.
But wait, except for some of the business credits listed above, and the concierge, these are all things I had assumed would be included in my membership! If I had actually chosen this benefit when I reached Mosaic status (rather than having it chosen for me as happened in this case), I would be livid! What if I had wanted one of the travel elite benefits offered by FoundersCard? Look at the screenshot below. Do you see the little lock icon at the top right of each of the images? That means that I’m locked out of all of those things because I didn’t upgrade to ELITE. No Hyatt Elite Tier Offer for me. No Sonesta Travel Pass. No Caesars Rewards Diamond Status. No complimentary Omni Platinum Status. No soup! You get the idea.
So… what good is the FoundersCard Blue (blue, as in sad?) membership? I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be a way to filter to the blue benefits alone. All I could find were discounts and free trial memberships to a bunch of different things. Maybe some of those are valuable? They do advertise preferred pricing on events ranging from Taylor Swift to Formula 1 racing. I didn’t dig in to see if there were real savings to be had, but maybe. Most of the deals seem to be things that I’d expect to find in a coupon packet in the mail:
- SoulCycle, receive 1 class free when you purchase 10
- Pure Yoga: Receive waived initiation and 10% off annual plans
- Harry & David: Save 20%
- Kiehl’s: Save 15% on Kiehl’s.com
- Teleflora: Save 25%
Lots and lots of “meh.”
Bottom Line
Unless I’m missing something, this is an embarrassment. JetBlue offers this hobbled version of FoundersCard as an optional perk for their valuable elites. And, not only is it not the ELITE version, but to activate this version you have to enter your credit card details and risk forgetting to cancel before they charge you full price for the membership a year later. How is this a benefit?
If, unlike me, you’re really interested in FoundersCard ELITE, then you can look at the JetBlue Mosaic benefit as a huge discount off your first year. It’s not free, but $250 isn’t bad for benefits like $50K of fee-free processing with Stripe, if you’ll actually use them. One thing I don’t know is what happens in year two if you earn Mosaic status again and pick this benefit again? Could you somehow avoid paying $995 for the second year of ELITE membership and instead upgrade again? If anyone tries it, let us know. I don’t plan to be the one testing it out.
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Founders Card Perk is a scam!!!
I cannot agree with you more. I cancelled my Founders Card perk after 26 days asking them to cancel me at the end of the year when it was near term and I was cancelled immediately today (Jan 31, 2024).
I contacted JetBlue and they offered no remediation whatsoever; essentially you chose it, your problem. I am livid and recommend that anyone and everyone stay away from Founders Card as I believe it is a bait and switch. They talk it up in the description and it is something very different after selected. The fact that JetBlue offers nothing to fix this or back out the perk for their Mosaic clients is a travesty and make them look no better than Founders Card. Their inaction makes them as culpable as Founders Card.
wish i read this article first, waist of time. I canceled it 20 minutes after activating .. joke
thanks for the heads up
Wow. Thanks for this article, Greg. Was just about to activate via JetBlue Mosaic and decided to Google this ‘Blue’ tier as i had a bad feeling about it. Worse than expected! Saved me some time!
There are a lot of tricks to enjoy FC’s Elite perks such as Caesars Diamond, Hilton Gold, Omni Platinum, AVIS President’s Club etc even if you are a FC complimentary member. Let me share one which enrolls your account in the Hyatt fast promo to Globalist. FC member number@founderscard.com is your company email.
Visit World of Hyatt elite tier offer page filling out your WOH member and the fonderscard email address format. You will receive an confirmation email sent by Hyatt forwarded from founderscard.
So you are saying that using the founders card email, you can get elite benefits without being elite?
Sounds like it, but I had a little trouble following as well.
“Most of the deals seem to be things that I’d expect to find in a coupon packet in the mail.”
Oh, so it’s like getting a free Amex Platinum card.
I’m really surprised by this. I’ve had the Founders Card for a few years (until I cancelled last year). That’s the base version, not the Elite one. I had a ton of benefits, some which weren’t available for me otherwise (because I’m not on the US and can’t have US credit cards). I used my Founders Card to get Hilton Status, Marriott Status, Avis and Sixt status (for all the good those do, but ok), I used the discounts in several things, including the Stripe one and that alone paid for several years of the card and then some. The only reason I cancelled was that most perks are only usable once, so you can’t keep getting hotel status with it every year, for example. Elite gave better perks but the base ones were very good for many things. Now, either that changed or the one you got was a reeeealy watered down version of Founders Card…
This is a new tier that is FAR below the base version of the card. I think Greg was right when he said Blue, as in sad…
I’m always perplexed by people who have so much hostility towards a blog, but keep reading it. This was a good post. I tried FC years ago and found it was not for me (honestly I was left feeling like it was kind of a scam but that was just my personal opinion). I couldn’t possibly see how I would actually get value, but maybe less points/deal savvy people would. But readership of this blog IS points/deal savvy people, so I’m guessing no one who is a legitimate fan of FM will get value. Which leads to . . . isn’t Greg correct in what he is writing for his readers?
Yes, Greg is correct. And, one commenter is an angry elf. It is as you say and as Mitsu said below. Most people who are active in the game will receive a broad range of tier statuses and benefits from their activities and cards. And, many of the tier statuses and benefits offered by FC would not be incremental but duplicative.
If someone is not so active in the game, maybe that person doesn’t have the tier statuses and benefits. And, maybe they would benefit. But, if they’re not active in travel, exactly how much benefit might they expect to receive and does that outweigh the cost of the card?
Being outside the US, Pedro (above) presents a very interesting scenario in which FC offers huge value. Along this line, some business owners who don’t travel at all might find huge value in the business perks alone.
But, then, this is a travel blog and that is the scope of Greg’s consideration.
I was excited about the FC benefit, even if it was going to be a little watered down. To be frank, there were no details about what was included until you signed up. I got it the day the new program opened. There was not one perk actually included without upgrading to Elite. I called JB within an hour of selecting my pork and they at least gave me my perk back. They really need to disclose what is included, or more to the point. What isn’t included.
I have deleted a bunch of comments that included completely unnecessary personal attacks. Let’s keep conversation to the details of the deal / post, not personal attacks on each other. Feel free to disagree, but do it respectfully please.
While commenter Michael’s intention is to support Founders Card, does anyone sense his comments below are working to the opposite effect? What a PR nightmare for Founders Card.
After reading the two FC employees bashing Greg in their hilarious comments, I’m pretty sure FM won’t be sponsored by FC anytime soon…
I am sure the startup came up with this “FoundersCard” idea based on ridiculous overestimate of membership value by some other travel and miles bloggers (not FM).
In reality, as this post says, this “card” doesn’t make financial sense for most people.
I am not sure why there are some people in comment section who are blatantly defending without actually providing examples of how benefits from this card can breakeven vs. ridiculously high sign-up and renewal fees that this card requires.
I never comment on any articles but had to come here and tell you that you are 10000% correct. But I’m here because I feel so strongly that It’s an absolute disgusting joke. I’m a big fan of jet blue but I was shocked when I logged in and checked out the benefits. Good thing that they remind you when they renew and there’s a grace period after the renewal date to cancel. I was ready to go to war if I didn’t get my money back.
I started the application when I hit Mosaic 3 through the match but quickly realized it was the watered down Blue version. Now I keep getting emails inviting me back to finish signing up for my 1-year free trial worth $595 which doesn’t make any sense. When I continue to try to click through, it still says I’m getting the Blue version. My main thing is trying to get Caesar’s Diamond (holding off on the Wyndham business card since Barclays has never approved me for a biz card)
I had FoundersCard for a couple years. The fact is, most of the discounts are available publicly and easily either via credit cards or just by calling the companies in question. I tried using many of the airline “discounts” and the discounts were always quite small. The only thing that was actually worth something tangible at the time was Caesar’s Diamond status but you can get that via other status match options.
They clearly are selling a coupon book of discounts which they are likely paying $0 for, most of which you can get via other means. Many of the offers are one time only, like a lot of the status challenges, or cash off offers. If you really want one of those and can’t get it otherwise, then it could be valuable for one year, but I would first try to get it some other way.
I also went to an FC “event” and it was meh 🙂
I get about 1000x more value from an Amex Platinum card or most of the other credit cards with solid multipliers.
The one thing I haven’t gotten a good handle on is whether the “ELITE” concierge is actually any good. I haven’t seen any reviews on that. There are other concierge services like Velocity Black that do seem to have decent reviews. Amex Platinum has a concierge that has given me some great value but in recent years seems to have nosedived in quality. If anyone has first hand experience with th concierge it would be cheaper than Velocity Black but I somehow doubt it is anywhere near as good.
Mitzu, for the average person in the points game, you are exactly right. Regarding the concierge, no. I will again say that the Founders Card IS a fit for some people. And, another reader states that he receives substantial value. But, the fact that he receives substantial value out of the Founders Card does not translate into everyone else receiving substantial value as well. The other reader doesn’t seem to sense that other people’s needs and objectives might differ from his and each other’s. The other reader seems far too passionate about the Founders Card.
The biggest problem with the concierge is it is only 5 hours/month, and there’s no explanation whatsoever what the concierge can do, or how they calculate the 5 hours. 5 hours/month is really not worth it.
As I said before, almost all of the benefits and discounts are available via other means – discount codes or credit cards, etc. There are some one time benefits that might be worth it if you know you’re going to use the benefit. I think it’s disingenuous of them to not allow people to see the benefits without signing up first, though it’s actually rather easy to find these out they don’t make it obvious.
It’s essentially a coupon collection service that you pay $595 or $1000/year to have them find all these coupons for you. If that gives you “substantial value”, go for it. I get far more value, thousands of dollars of value, via other avenues.
A service like Velocity Black, on the other hand, is kind of interesting to me, because it could actually save me some serious time. I may give them another look.
Yep