In early July I wrote how SPG Points Transfers Just Don’t Make Sense.
What I was referring to was transferring SPG points to another family member’s SPG account. I was trying to transfer some SPG points to Lucas so he could take part in JetBlue’s Virgin America points match offer to earn 75,000 points.
My original plan was to go on a 1-2 night trip with Lucas due to JetBlue’s offer. My destination of choice was going to be Buffalo, NY. Since Lucas didn’t get the points transferred in time, our trip idea got canned.
In order to earn the 75,000 JetBlue points bonus, two things had to be done:
- Send a screenshot to JetBlue showing a Virgin Elevate account balance of 50,001 points or higher
- After receiving a confirmation e-mail from JetBlue, book and fly roundtrip on JetBlue on a revenue ticket.
Once it was decided that taking a short trip with Lucas wouldn’t happen, I had to decide if I wanted to just go on a pure mileage run (something I’ve never done) or fly somewhere cheap and make a day out of it.
I opted for choice 2 and decided to go with my brother to Boston for the day- well, part of a day!
Since my brother was also taking part in the promo, we decided to spend a few hours in Boston rather than just fly back and forth. In my opinion, if you’re going to fly you might as well make something of the time used.
After looking at various options, we each decided to book a flight from Newark Airport to Boston. The flight with tax came to $96.20. Definitely a fair price to pay to fulfill the JetBlue points match offer.
Here is what we flew:
- Newark (EWR) at 10:40 AM to Boston (BOS) arriving at 11:44 AM
- Boston at 7:05 PM, to Newark arriving at 8:30 PM
This gave us 7 hours in Boston including getting to and from the airport. In reality, we’d have around 5 hours to kill in the city.
Find out what we did during our visit in a future post!
Did you take part in the JetBlue- Virgin America points match offer? If so, where did you fly and how many bonus JetBlue points will you be earning?
Kevin- Sounds like you made a nice little trip out of your time in Boston!
I was also able to get in on this deal and wish I did it for other members of the family. Transferred just enough to hit over 40K Virgin Elevate points since I didn’t think the AMEX transfer was worth it at that rate.
I booked at a similar price ($96 give or take) from JFK-BOS but found an even lower price (around $94 I think). I called up JetBlue and provided them the website in question. They confirmed it an honored the $100 per person plus the credit for the lower price. These were all issued in JetBlue credits which expire after a year but I’m sure they will be used by then. Consider this one a free trip to Boston.
Had my hotels booked with points as well and decided to stay there this past Friday and just returned very early yesterday morning. Spent two days running around the city using public transportation and the Go Boston Card. Was well worth the trip for the 75K points and crossed off a handful of things that we had done there. Still too early now but I checked anyway and no points posted yet. I’m sure it will be posted in the next few days or so.
Justin- So you went on a true mileage run. Not my thing but I did consider it! I totally agree- JetBlue gives enough space in standard seats where I don’t see any need to upgrade. I’m hoping to see the points post soon just to have a conclusion to the promo but I also am not in any rush to use the points at the moment.
I went PHL-BOS for a little more ($144) last Tuesday and used 300 points I had gotten from the survey signup bonus to bump to an even more space seat on the outbound leg. I took off from PHL at 10:10 AM and landed back at PHL at 1:40 PM. Had a short layover (walked from C21 to C34 at Logan and boarded about 20 min after I landed) and had done the Mosaic match from AA Plat a couple of months ago so it was quick on/quick off. Had the entire row to myself on the outbound and thought even in row 5 coming back I had a fair amount of space. Not a bad flip for 75k JetBlue points. Still waiting on the bonus to post too. I wonder what the normal time is…not in any rush to burn through them though.
DDG- Have a good flight and enjoy the snacks!
Meg- I flew on Wednesday and am still waiting for the bonus to post. Hopefully it will come soon. Wow, that’s pricey for you to fly to BOS. Did you go for the promo or pass?
How long did it take for you to get your points after flying? And that’s amazing that you got it for $96! From DC, the cheapest was also Boston but maybe double the cost o.O
Henry- Did you really find extra leg room necessary for a one hour flight? I personally find JetBlue to offer more than enough space on their flights. I had an empty seat next to me on the way back which was nice though! FYI- You can ask for as many snacks as you like when you fly with JetBlue! 🙂
Didn’t know that snack trick 🙂 I’ll test it out. I’m flying Sunday JFK-BOS. Paid the same price, USD192.40 for 2 round-trip.
I paid the exact fare for the same number of miles; however, I did the $25 upgrade for the row 1 extra room seat each way. It was worth it as there was no one next to me on each flight and managed to get an extra bag of those wonderful blue chips.