Update, 10/11/23: You can once again use JetBlue Travel Bank funds to book award tickets online. However, you must have enough funds to cover the full cost of the taxes.
That’s great news, as you can use the AMEX airline fee credit to obtain JetBlue Travel Bank funds, which are useable for anyone.
You can once again apply credits on JetBlue.com when your Travel Bank balance fully covers the taxes:
You can’t apply credits when your Travel Bank balance doesn’t fully cover the taxes:
HT: Ari Z.
- Update, 1/12/23: Here are some quirks that I experienced going through this process:
- I wanted to book 6 international award tickets with $110.05 in taxes on JetBlue. I also wanted to use AMEX airline fee credits to do so.
- I booked 6 $98.90 JetBlue regular economy tickets using 3 (of our current 13) AMEX Platinum cards, which were credited back via fee credits. Within 24 hours, JetBlue.com only allowed a refund back to the credit card, but after 24 hours I was able to credit it to my Travel Bank account by cancelling online.
- JetBlue.com does not currently allow points+Travel Bank bookings, so I called to book. However JetBlue phone agents also can’t book points+Travel Bank+cash bookings, you need to be able to cover the full balance with points+Travel Bank.
- I booked a $68.90 basic economy ticket on a 4th AMEX Platinum card. I then sent a DM to JetBlue on Twitter to have that cancelled and refunded to my Travel Bank, which they did in just 2 minutes!
- I tried to book the awards via DM, but they refused. I then called JetBlue to book points+Travel Bank, but the agent said it’s no longer possible to do and advised I write into JetBlue to complain about it. I HUCAd and told the agent that the website said I should call in to book points+Travel Bank and the agent said she would be happy to try it out. Sure enough, that worked, leaving me with a $2 Travel Bank balance.
- Somehow our mileage numbers and Global Entry numbers weren’t included and unsurprisingly, JetBlue’s buggy website wasn’t able to rectify that. However after a quick DM to JetBlue on Twitter they added our KTNs and my AA Executive Platinum number to unlock benefits like 2 free bags per person, priority checking, security, boarding, and bag handling, free EMS seating at checkin, free same-day switch, etc.
Have you used TravelBank for award tickets? Share your experience below!
Originally posted on 12/20/22:
Several posters on the DansDeals Facebook Group have noted that you can no longer use JetBlue Travel Bank funds to pay for the taxes on award tickets.
Sure enough, JetBlue.com now shows that Travel Bank funds can’t be used on an award ticket. But hey, you can pay $18 to protect the $5.60 taxes paid if you want.
I don’t currently have any JetBlue Travel Bank funds, but posted my hunch that people should try calling JetBlue to see if it could be done over the phone. After all, JetBlue’s old website allowed TravelBank funds to be used with awards and the new website just seems to have made everything worse. Unfortunately, the backdoor link to the old website now appears to be dead.
What makes this worse is that while other airlines refund the taxes to your original form of payment when you cancel an award, JetBlue refunds the taxes to your Travel Bank.
I reached out to JetBlue and after a couple of days they responded,
“As we upgrade our web experience, utilizing existing Travel Bank credits for the cash portion of award travel is currently not available on jetblue.com. Customers wishing to use Travel Bank credit to pay taxes on award travel should call 1-800-JETBLUE and a customer care crewmember will assist them. In these cases, our phone booking fee will also be waived.”
I’m happy to hear that’s not a policy change, but JetBlue often has long hold times. I asked if the airline plans to restore that online functionality and they responded that they are hoping to do that in the next few months.
So there you have it. Now, can anyone explain why the functionality on airline websites seems to keep going backwards with every refresh?
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43 Comments On "[Now Partially Working Again Online] No, JetBlue Hasn’t Killed Off Using Travel Bank Funds On Award Tickets, They Just Made It More Difficult"
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The best part of these posts is to see Dans point balance
Lol!
This is frustrating. JetBlue, do better!
Hit them up on Twitter.
IT trying to protect their jobs?
Well, that’s good news I suppose (and thanks Dan for getting the answer!), but shame on JetBlue for not bothering to tell users that — they obviously could have that message say anything but have chosen to go with a definitive (and misleading) “may not be used.” Are they just planning on keeping this secret for the “next few months”?
Yup, ridiculous.
Which credit card is enabling that many TrueBlue points??
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/its-time-to-mileage-run-earn-up-to-75k-jetblue-points-after-1-round-trip-if-you-have-or-if-you-transfer-points-to-virgin-america/
this doesnt show how your balance is that high. only how you might have gotten 75k back in 2016
I did 75K pointsmatch for my wife and kids and pooled all the points together.
Sadly, JetBlue only flies to BOS from CLE. But hopefully will burn some points for transatlantic mint at some point.
Just had this issue! I was so confused since I just booked award and paid tax fees with travel bank a few months ago and now the option was gone.
I ended up chatting with them for forever and getting refunded…
Refund option only works if travel is more than 7 days. Half of their agents don’t know this “bug” and are super argumentative. This is after going through the mosaic line and spending nearly 4 hours on the phone! Epic fail!
Only as I have learned in the last two weeks, while you are on the phone with them to rectify this the fare changes and they won’t honor it. So now, in order to pay with points and travelbank you wind up with a higher fare and a loss of several hours of your time! Epic fail and that is going through the Mosaic Line!!
Just happened to me. Hour wait and the price went up meanwhile. Terrible
Speaking of “refreshed websites” try using Air Canada’s site.
Just awful
Thank you for posting this. I thought I had imagined using my Travel Bank funds in the past!
With the one-year expiration period on Travel Bank funds, JetBlue wants to limit and make it difficult to use those funds increasing the chance that the funds are forfeited. They are counting on the majority of folks to give up. It would be interesting to see what percentage of JetBlue Travel Bank funds expire unused but that info would only be available through discovery in a lawsuit.
Pay the taxes and fees with a credit card. If you loose your bag and the airline decides not reimburse or limit the amount they obligate themselves, you will shoot yourself for using your balance instead of CC…
Think you should make it clear to people.
בדידי הוה עובדא
I recently flew JetBlue over the pond (economy core), and I had such a good experience that I would use them again even if not cheaper. Great airline!!!
is it possible to transfer points from sapphire reserve to jet blue ?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/mileage-expiration-guide-for-38-loyalty-programs-how-to-keep-your-points-from-expiring-and-how-to-bring-them-back-to-life-after-theyve-expired/
THANK YOU
the reps say you can use travel bank with mileage, they dont know about this issue. any tips what to do??
Although you can use the travel bank over the points with a points booking you cannot split the payment on a points booking between travel bank and CC.
Acc to the manager I spoke to last night, they can no longer apply the travel bank to mileage flights even over the phone as of a few days ago. She said they are just as confused as costumers are and they don’t know what’s going on with the changes, they are waiting to hear what the company is changing exactly, possibly something to do with being able to book flights with AA
HUCA. You have to have enough TB credit to cover it without a credit card, but they can do it.
Best strategy is to say that it says online to call in to use TB funds on an award. That worked for me with 1 HUCA.
HUCA is tough when it’s an hour wait and another hour to get to a manager. The manager ended up helping me but she it made clear that’s it’s not authorized and she can get in trouble for it. It was a work around that she found took forever to process each passenger, and I have no confirmation that the refund will come in. Just gotta wait and see
Why wait for a manager? I didn’t need a refund, just told the rep it said to call, she said she’d try it and it worked.
I told her that but she kept changing the info she told me and wouldn’t do it so eventually I asked for a manager
In these cases, HUCA is often better than a manager.
I had the same issue. I called and huca’ed multiple times, and each time the agent was not able to book the travel bank together with an award ticket. I gave the same argument that they’re supposed to be able to do it on the phone, because it’s not doable online
My wait times varied from 15 minutes to 1-1/2 hours, and time on the phone with them, another 30 minutes. All this, just to use my lousy $5.60 credit.
So I just gave up. But it bothers me to no end, it’s the principle of the thing.
I had an interesting new experience with jetblue. Over the past month, I canceled 3 flights booked with points. When I went online to cancel, the credit came back only in dollars, not in points. At first, I was quite happy, but then realized that the find they were going to give me back was MUCH lower than the cash price for the ticket. I had to call JB each time to cancel giving me back my points, not funds.
The problem is that while you are on hold to speak w an agent, the airfare changes. They won’t honor the price you have on your screen. It’s a lose/lose. Even at mosaic level.
This happened to me 3 times. So frustrating
Are you able to use travel bank for the entire $$ cost of flight or is travel bank only for taxes?
Thnx
Either.
United is also no good, travel bank can only be used towards paid tickets. For award tickets it can’t be used towards taxes & fees, paid upgrades, or anything else.
Can i switch previously booked award tickets with taxes charged to my cc to be charged from tb instead?
No.
Finally! This was so annoying so many times! I complained to B6 at least 10 times about this.
Just worked for me but had to do the event more space purchase separate from the flight purchase as they don’t allow using travel bank for extras and it also prevents entire transaction being used from travel bank even just the taxes and fees part.
Did it today thanks to this posting. Thx Dan.