Update: No need to worry if you received a Barclaycard JetBlue card in the mail before 3/21 and you had already closed your American Express JetBlue card.

Earlier this week, several bloggers broke the details behind the new JetBlue credit cards (both a personal and business version) issued by Barclaycard starting in March this year. I highly recommend reading Doctor of Credit’s review of both cards as I find this the most through review I’ve read but here are a quick few highlights of the cards.

New JetBlue Credit Card

Personal Card:

• 5% Points Rebate When Redeeming Points (no limit)
• 4x earnings on JetBlue purchases (used to be 2x), 2x earnings on Restaurants/Grocery Stores, 1x earnings on Everything Else
• $100 Companion Discount if converted from American Express & spend $500 by June 30th
• 50% Discount on Inflight JetBlue Purchases
• $40 Annual Fee (same as before)

Business Card:

• 10% Points Rebate When Redeeming Points (no limit)
• 6x earnings on JetBlue purchases (used to be 2x), 2x earnings on Restaurants/Office Supply Stores, 1x earnings on Everything Else
• 5,000 Anniversary Points Every Year
• Free Checked Baggage
• $99 Annual Fee (was $40)

Compared to the American Express product, this is a semi-competitive card if you are a regular JetBlue flyer. With my home airport being JFK/LGA, JetBlue is an airline on my radar for domestic/Mexico/Caribbean trips so I plan on obtaining one, if not both of these cards at some point.

Speaking of that, last month I argued that if you are a current JetBlue American Express card holder you should consider canceling your card before the transition in hopes of being able to get the signup bonus on the new JetBlue card. We didn’t know when the transition was occurring but per this letter I just received from American Express (even though my account has been closed for 2 weeks), we now know that any open, existing American Express JetBlue card account will be transferred over to Barclaycard on March 21st. Additionally, March 17th is the last day to cancel the American Express card if you don’t want it converted to the Barclaycard version.

While it is still true we do not know for certain that Barlcaycard will offer a signup bonus on these new cards, I feel confident that we will see at some point a signup bonus of at least 20,000 TrueBlue points (and possibly more). This is not like the transition from the US Airways card to an AAdvantage card for Barclaycard – this is completely new account for Barclaycard and they have the ability to offer this card to new cardholders. Hence why I believe they will offer a signup bonus to entice new customers to get the card.

Hopefully Barclaycard will make the signup bonus known before March 18th so you can wait as long as possible before deciding on what to do with your current American Express JetBlue card. However if they do not, I would be willing to gamble on losing the $100 companion discount in hopes of getting a signup bonus at some point in 2016. I’ve already gone ahead and closed my card (and my wife’s) two weeks ago with no regrets.

What do others think of this strategy?