I do it for the miles, baby.

One benefit of my JetBlue American Express card is, of course, the TrueBlue reward points I get for using it.

Now, because I use this card largely as a debit card, I won't be racking up thousands in purchases. (That may change when I start paying school fees with it.) However, the ways in which I choose to make charges can help me slowly gain points (that don't expire) that I can use toward JetBlue flights. Anytime I spend money with the AMEX, I get a point per dollar. If I'm spending in a select category (including restaurants, gym memberships, movie theaters, event tickets purchased from the venue), I get 2 points per dollar. And if I buy JetBlue tickets online at jetblue.com with my JetBlue American Express, I get a whopping 8 points per dollar!

The companies say that TrueBlue reward flights start at 5,000 points one-way / 10,000 points round-trip. That's technically true, but for my usage (SFO to LGB or PBI and back, often on weekends/holidays, but infrequently) it runs a little higher. It's going to take me a while to rack up enough points from daily spending to completely cover a flight. (And it does need to be completely covered; if you're trying to buy a flight with points and you don't have enough points accrued, you have to purchase points to complete the sale.) However, I got 10,000 points for signing up and using the card the first time, and an additional 10,000 because I spent more than $500 on the card in the first 6 weeks (I was charging EVERYTHING in order to reach that bonus). I sent AMEX a polite request to have the points credited to my TrueBlue account sooner (they say processing usually takes up to 12 weeks), and they were great about it. The 20,000 points were transferred the next day, in plenty of time for me to book my New Year's weekend travel, and they paid for most of a one-way flight back from Florida. After pricing round-trip tickets, it looked like it would cost just as much as two one-ways, and I would have to pay it out of pocket.

SFO > PBI via kayak.com: 438.90 (Yes! It's crazy-expensive to fly during the holidays!)
PBI > SFO via jetblue.com: 126.48 (paid in addition to points)
Here's the breakdown:
1,650 previously-earned points (from flights in 2009-10; I had earned double points for booking online)
plus 20,000 points (from the AMEX bonus)
plus $126.48 paid for extra points (a bundle of 3500 plus 850 bonus points from JetBlue for purchasing them in bulk; I couldn't buy just the amount that I needed.)

That left me using 25,600 points for a ONE-WAY TRIP. Ouch. But it's free money. I had 426 points left over, and this morning AMEX credited me 818 points for my recent purchases (several weeks after making them, for processing). So I have a healthy balance still. My sweetie I'm visiting in Florida chipped in toward the USD cost of airfare, so all in all this really helped out in vacation planning.


Now, JetBlue still rocks some pretty sweet fare deals, and it's not always worth it to use the points. For example, I got an email last week plugging one-way fares from $39 -- travel period several weeks from now, one-day-only sale. It seemed like a great way to get Koo back up here after she moves her stuff and has to return the U-Haul in SoCal (rates are sooo much better than one-way move). The LGB airport is tiny and has always been hassle-free with security, and she can fly up here in an hour, then take BART (public transit) to me. I scooped up a one-way flight for Koo on the Monday after the move for under $50 including taxes/fees. If I'd tried to get the same flight in points, it would have run me 5,000 -- or about $112. And, hey, buying it online with my card gets me more points!