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A few days ago I wrote about the current SPG Starpoints sale, which allows you to buy Starpoints for ~ 1.82p each (2.45 cents). I mentioned in that post some of the reasons you might want to take advantage of the offer, including:

Sample Singapore Airlines Business Class – £138.00

Singapore Airlines Business Class RETURN to New York – £947.00

Experience the best First Class in the sky twice! – £910.00

There’s an even better deal available though – if you are able and willing to take a Return JetBlue flight before the end of August.

JetBlue are a predominantly domestic US airline (they also fly to a few Caribbean/Central American destinations), so I fully admit this is a bit of a niche offer. Some readers might be in America over the summer holidays though, and the value is so good that I thought it was still worth sharing.

JetBlue are currently involved in a bit of a scrap with Virgin America, and are keen to poach their flyers. This has led to them offering an incredibly generous offer to match (in fact more than match) the Virgin America ‘Elevate’ balance of everyone who registers for the offer and takes a Return flight with them before 31st August 2016.

As you can see above, anyone with an Elevate balance of 50,001+ Miles can get 75,000 free JetBlue ‘TrueBlue’ Points!

You said 40,001 Starpoints, not 50,001 ‘Elevate’ Miles?

Yep, remember you can transfer Starpoints to Virgin America Elevate at an effective rate of 1 to 1.25, which means 40,001 Starpoints gets you 50,001 Elevate Miles.

Add the 50,001 Elevate to the free 75,000 from JetBlue and your 40,001 Starpoints have magically turned into 125,001 Miles!

What are any of these Points/Miles actually worth – does it make sense to transfer?

Virgin America Miles are worth at least ~1.65p (2.2 cents) when redeemed for Virgin America flights. You can also get considerably more value from them if you redeem on some of Virgin America’s partners as you can see here.

Using the relatively cautious 1.65p valuation, 50,001 Elevate Miles are worth ~ £825.00.

JetBlue Points are generally worth between 0.97p – 1.2p (1.3-1.6 cents) when redeeming them for Jet Blue tickets, so we’ll say 1.1p as an average. 75,000 are therefore worth another £825.00.

Add the two together and you’ve got £1,650.00 worth of Miles/Points. 

As with any offer, it obviously only makes sense if you are going to have the opportunity to actually benefit from the Miles. If you spend any time in the States regularly or are planning a trip, it should be fairly easy for you to get value from this.

Where does the £728.00 you mentioned come into this?

Not everyone has lots of Starpoints laying around, but you can buy them in the sale until 1st July for 1.82p (2.45 cents) each. 40,001 Starpoints would cost ~£728.00.

There is a 30,000 annual purchase limit, but you can transfer Starpoints between members of the same household for free.

Purchased Starpoints should hit your account instantly, and transferring to Virgin America should take less than 24 hours, so there is still time to take advantage of this – if you’re quick!

What about that JetBlue flight I need to take?

No way around it I’m afraid.

The good news is that if you are in the US at any point this summer, you can pick up a return JetBlue flight easily enough for £50.00-£100.00 hopping between cities in the north east of America. Washington to Hartford seems to be the cheapest, but NYC-Boston probably makes more sense for most people!

If you are heading to the USA this summer, it might make sense to consider a couple of days in Boston (JetBlue hub) on the way. You can take advantage of one the great Avios ‘sweetspots’ that way too, using just 12,500 Avios (each way) on Aer Lingus from Dublin/Shannon.