I know the JetBlue American Express card is not a popular card for many of us but I applied for one right before American Express instituted the once in a lifetime policy for signup bonuses since I previously had this card before my travel hacking ways. I’ve kept the card and paid the $40 annual fee since then as I was making money off this card from Amex Offers with my card and several authorized users on it. That all said, I think now is the time to cancel the card – in fact, I just canceled my own and I’ll go over my reasons for doing so.
RIP JetBlue Amex
As you might be aware, American Express lost the JetBlue contract to Barclaycard last year and stopped accepting applications for new cardholders last fall. Everyone who is a current JetBlue cardholder will have their American JetBlue card transferred to Barclays on March 21st. This is the biggest reason why I am cancelling my card as I do NOT want American Express converting my card into the Barclaycard version.
The reasoning is actually quite simple – I tend to chase signup bonuses as my preferred method for earning points/miles and if I let American Express transfer my card to Barclaycard, I will lose out on the ability to earn a signup bonus on this new JetBlue card. At some point this year, Barclaycard will begin accepting applications for the their version of the JetBlue card. I have no clue what the signup bonus will be (or if there will even be one though I think it is highly likely there will be some sort of signup bonus) but if the have a similar promotion to American Express, the signup bonus could be at least 20,000 JetBlue TrueBlue points and I don’t want to lose out on the chance to earn 20,000+ points. This may not sound like a bunch of points but as someone who lives by one of their hubs, I actually prefer to fly JetBlue domestically and especially to the Caribbean.
If American Express is transferring these cards on March 21st, you have some time to cancel before this conversion happens. However, unless you are a frequent JetBlue flyer I would just cancel the card now or if given the option by American Express, convert it to another American Express product if you are given a solid offer (this has been happening for current Costco Amex card holders). In my scenario, canceling the card now gave me a pro rated annual fee refund of $13.33. It also freed up a spot for a new American Express credit card (remember you can have only a max of 4 credit cards) which I used to apply for a 25,000 point offer on the Amex Everyday.
For me, canceling this card was a no-brainer especially when considering the above items. Interestingly, I did not get any retention offers or offers to convert but then again I didn’t push that hard and decided not to HUCA. I have to think for many of you that closing the card will be the right decision if you want to pick up some easy JetBlue points from Barclaycard once their JetBlue card application is available.
PointsCentric 
[…] of that, last month I argued that if you are a current JetBlue American Express card holder you should consider canceli…before the transition in hopes of being able to get the signup bonus on the new JetBlue card. We […]
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I cancelled my my Jetblue card on February 21st in order to NOT be automatically converted to the new Barclays JB card. I explicitly confirmed this with Amex when cancelling. Unfortunately a new Barclays JB card arrived in the mail today. I’m not a happy camper.
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That’s not good news… I’ll report back with my experience
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I did the same, cancelled in order to NOT get the Barclay card but got one anyway. As many have found out..there has not been one bit of Barclay contact information provided with their copious correspondence. Now I wonder if they will bill me for the card I do not want and have not activated.
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Did you see my update (another comment in this post)? I don’t think you have to worry
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Same here. We received our new cards and can’t figure out who to call. Amex says call Barclay and Barclay number on new card isnt active until March 21st. Very frustrating !!!!
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Question: I cancelled my JetBlue AMEX yesterday and tried to apply for the new JetBlue Plus card but was declined because they claimed I was a JetBlue AMEX card holder which I am not anymore. Any ideas/tips here?
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This is a reoccurring issue with many people – I think Barclaycard systems haven’t updated yet fully to the active list of CC holders from Amex. I think all we can do is wait this out until 3/21 and at that time, call Barclaycard to make sure you are not an active member
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Thanks. I made a bunch of phone calls, said “customer service” about 100 times, was transferred about 10000 times and was finally given the explanation that I was being declined because I was a JetBlue AMEX card holder even though I am not anymore. I was told to call 866-205-5973 to ask about when I might be able to reapply and there was no hard timeline on that. I hope your 3/21 date is accurate. I will be VERY upset if I cancelled my JetBlue amex card and effectively lost all the points I could have earned when I paid off my final balance yesterday. By cancelling and paying my balance I essentially lost about 10k points.
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This seems like a widespread issue so I am very hopeful this is a mistake. At worst, I think an argument could be made to the CFPB about the misleading information given to us by both banks
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Here is how Barclays responded to me via Twitter:
First, let me assure you that if you have already closed your JetBlue Card from American Express, your account will not be converted to the new JetBlue Rewards MasterCard, issued by Barclaycard. To ensure that our cardmembers would be able to use their new JetBlue Rewards MasterCards immediately when the accounts are transferred to us on March 21, 2016, it was necessary to send the new cards prior to that date and at that time your account was still open with American Express. If you would like to confirm that your JetBlue Card from American Express account is closed, please contact American Express. Barclaycard will not be able to confirm the status of your account until after the conversion on March 21, 2016, but please be reassured that we will not maintain an account for you if you closed your account with American Express prior to March 21st. We hope this information is helpful and are very sorry for the confusion this has caused.
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Thanks for this Tyler – I will post this separately if you don’t mind since there are many of you with the same question
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I don’t mind, please share with other folks in the same situation.
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[…] be transferred to Barclaycard and you would receive a new Barclaycard version of the JetBlue card. I argued for most people it would make sense to cancel the American Express JetBlue card so you would be eligible for the signup bonus (currently 30k) for the Barclaycard version. It […]
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What a huge joke this transfer is. I was on auto pay with Amex so, bada bing bada bang, I get a late fee charge because the auto pay wasn’t converted over. And I got a late fee charge on a charge that I had already taken off auto pay.
What a joke!! What a disaster. I’m going to use up my points with Jet Blue so I can cancel.
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Has anyone that received a Barclaycard even though they had cancelled Amex Jetblue verified that account is closed and tried to apply for new JetBlue card with Barclay ? How did you make out ?
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I had one client confirm it is closed but has not tried to apply for a new card
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Barclays is horrific. I got the new card, but never activated it. I received a bill for an annual renewal in June. I called up customer service right away and told them to cancel the card. They said okay and reversed the annual fee and closed the account. In July I got a bill for the annual fee and late charges. I called again. They said they were sorry for the error and fixed the bill. In August, same thing happened again. Same run around. Cancelled account, reversed charges. Here it is October and the assholes have sent me a bill for the fourth time. It’s ridiculous. Don’t get their card. You can’t ever stop it. I hate them. I have to go call them for the 5th time.
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Wow that’s the first I’ve heard of this. If it keeps up, you should ask for some points for compensation for your troubles.
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