JetBlue TrueBlue Points: Your Gateway to Qsuite Luxury

JetBlue and Qatar Airways: A Match Made in the Sky for Qsuite Bookings

Is a Qatar Airways Qsuites flight on your bucket list? Since I started learning about the world of points and miles, I have been aspiring to book one of these luxurious flights. In the realm of air travel, Qatar Airways Qsuites have become synonymous with opulence and exclusivity. However, the reality for most travelers is that such luxurious experiences often come with a hefty price tag, rendering them seemingly unattainable. But if you've been around this blog long enough, you know that one of my main goals is to score these incredible flights for much less using the power of points and miles. If you're new here, this is a great starting place.

This fall, we are planning a trip to Asia and I knew I had to try to get Qsuites for my family of 4 for this trip. In this post, I'll go into the tools and programs I used to book them and hopefully give you a little insight into the process. If you're interested in a step-by-step guide, comment below and I'll consider making one in the near future! I was aiming to book these redemptions using JetBlue as I had Chase points that I could easily transfer and JetBlue has great redemption values from the US to DOH. But I didn't start off on JetBlue's site. Instead, I started off using some of my favorite award flight redemption tools. But we will get to that in a few minutes. First, here is a little background on JetBlue's TrueBlue Program.

JetBlue TrueBlue Program

JetBlue's TrueBlue points offer a versatile and rewarding way to travel. With no blackout dates and points that never expire, members can redeem points for JetBlue-operated flights, partner flights (like Qatar!) or flight + hotel packages, based on the current price of the trip. The program is designed to be flexible, allowing travelers to earn points not only on flights but also through various partners and everyday purchases through their dining and shopping portals. For those a bit short on points, the Cash + Points option starts at just 500 points, making it easier to book that dream trip. With the ability to pool points with friends and family, and the opportunity to climb the tiers of the Mosaic status for even more perks, TrueBlue points are a gateway to a more personalized and enjoyable travel journey. Additionally, JetBlue doesn't charge any change fees on award flights--so you can book and rebook and rebook again without worrying about change fees!

Transfer Points to JetBlue TrueBlue Program for Ultimate Flexibility

You've probably caught on to the fact that those of us in the points and miles space love flexible points. If you're not sure what I mean by that, you should read this blog post first. Now that we all know what these flexible points are, let me show you a real-life example of redeeming these flexible points for maximum value.

JetBlue is a current transfer partner with Chase, Citi, and American Express. Chase and Citi both transfer 1:1 (i.e. 1 Chase point=1 JetBlue TrueBlue Point), but Amex only transfers at 1: 0.8 ratio (unless there is a current promotion). Because of this, I like to transfer Chase points as I currently don't have any Citi cards that earn Thank You points (but the Citi Strat Premier Card is definitely a card I plan to get in the future) to JetBlue.

Searching for Qsuite Award Availability

But the process doesn't start with transferring points. The process starts with somewhat of a plan (maybe) and searching for award space. For me, the process started with a specific plan to try to book Qsuites for my family of 4 for at least one leg of our upcoming international trip this fall. What's so special about Qsuites anyways you might ask? Well, they are often regarded as one of the best business class products in the sky and have been on my flight bucket list since I first started getting into the points and miles game. If you still don't know what all the fuss is about, watch a few YouTube videos or wait for my full review later this fall and I can guarantee you'll be adding it to your flight bucket list too!

Since I knew I wanted to book Qsuites, I started searching for availability. One of my current favorite award space search engines is seats.aero. You can use this search engine to search for award space between any two airports or region, but the best part is they already have a Qsuites award finder tool on their website.

I knew I wanted to book via JetBlue because I don't currently have a way to transfer any miles to AAdvantage, Alaska, or Virgin Velocity (Australia based program). You can click on source and filter by the source, or you can click on business and filter by the points needed for the flight award. From what I've noticed (I could be wrong!), each flight typically has 2 seats available at the "saver rate" for Qsuite redemptions. This meant I immediately knew I couldn't look for 4 seats and we'd need to split up in order to score these coveted seats at an amazing value--I'll take one kid and my husband takes the other. I am currently a paid subscriber to seats.aero ($9.99/mo) as I am planning our trip for the fall and searching a lot of award space. I typically turn my subscription on and off as needed for times I'm planning a trip. You can also use the free version, but to see a full year of Qsuites award availability, you'd need to pay for the Pro version. The free version will show you the next 60 days of Qsuites availability, but if you really want to snag these awesome award seats, you have the best chance at about a year out.

This is a fairly new partnership and you've only been able to book Qsuites via JetBlue since November of 2023. A flight from the US to Doha will typically run 70K-90K points depending on the origin airport and fights from Europe to Doha are around 59K points. Now let's talk about the search.

Originally, I found availability for my son and I to fly IAD-DOH for 80K points and $7.95 per person and availability for my husband and other son to fly YUL to DOH for 80K points and $60.72 per person. I was so excited about scoring these flights, but due to some date changes out of our control, we had to give up these flights and the search was on again (yay for no change fees!). I couldn't find any availability from the US to DOH for the dates we needed so I started searching alternative flights from Europe to DOH that had Qsuites (not all flights have Qsuites--and I always confirm with Qatar airways directly before I book--I just search the flight on Qatar's website and if it has Qsuites, it will show that in the search results). I found availability from CDG to DOH for all 4 of us on two different flights on the same day, so I went ahead and snagged these tickets via JetBlue in case I couldn't find availability from the US to DOH, but I was still searching daily for availability. Additionally, another great feature of seats.aero is that you can set up alerts for awards you are looking to book. Here's an example of one I set for the Qsuite availability:

Click Qatar Qsuites Finder and you'll get the screen below where you can filter results by the region you want to travel to or from.

Even with the alert, I'd check availability almost every day in hopes of scoring flights from the US to DOH. Then, one day, I got the notification that seats.aero found availability for my alert! (You can choose an email or text notification when you set up your alert) I was so excited, and I quickly searched the alerted award on JetBlue. Just as seats.aero alerted me, there were 2 seats available from ORD-DOH. I cancelled my husband and son's award flights from CDG-DOH booked via JetBlue and then immediately re-booked them in the two ORD-DOH flights I'd found.

Once you see availability on seats.aero, you can click the link by hovering over the business class points, or you can go directly to JetBlue and search the same flight and then book using your points. Of course you may need to transfer your points and from my experience, JetBlue points transfer almost instantaneously from Chase and Amex.

Again, one of the great thing about JetBlue is that award flights are fully refundable: points are immediately returned to your account and the taxes/fees are refunded to your original form of payment within a day or two, so there was no risk in booking the placeholder flights until I found what I wanted.

ORD-DOH: 2 seats, 80K points each plus $7.95 in fees for a total of 160K points and $15.90.

I kept searching and found 1 seat of saver award availability (these are the 70K and 80K point redemptions available via partners) from JFK to DOH a couple of days before the other flight and decided to book that for myself. Qatar Airways has these saver awards, but then also has what are called flexi awards once the saver awards are gone. These are double the points, but after some calculations, I decided paying for a flexi award for my son would actually cost less points and be a much better redemption value than trying to find an award flight to CDG to catch our currently booked flight. I had been searching award space to CDG for several weeks and wasn't able to find anything under 70K points and nothing that I was particularly excited about. Here's the math that went on in my head

Below is the cash cost of the flight I booked: $10,531 via Qatar Airways (I would never book with a third party site because you don't earn any miles that way!) The total cash cost for our flight would've been $21K! Using that cost, we got a 10 cent per point value on our redemption which is incredible (even though I had to buy one of the flights at the flexi award)! My husband and other son's flight cash cost was also $10K each so for that redemption (getting both in saver award space!) we got a 12.5 cent per point value which is insane! I am so happy with these redemptions, and I am even more excited to take these bucket list flights in a few months! Be sure to subscribe so you can read our full review of our Qsuite experience!

I had paid 118K points plus $255.70 in taxes and fees total for the two CDG-DOH flights

I could book one JFK-DOH flight via JetBlue for 70K points plus $7.95 and then one for 140K points plus $99.85 for a total of 210K points plus $107.80

The difference between the 2 flights was 92K points and $147.90

Adding an award to Europe would've added a minimum of 90K points total for a premium economy flight and at least $100-$200 in taxes/fees. When I saw this math, I realized while I'd be spending 70K points more on my son's award flight, flying Qsuites from the US to DOH would actually be the better redemption, not to mention a redemption I am super excited about--12 hours in Qsuites, YES!!!

As our final first destination is Kathmandu, Nepal I still need to book flights from DOH to KTM. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the itinerary to price through to KTM, so I had to book separately. I'm not sure if there is away around this. I think I have read about people booking Qsuites from US to Maldives for 80K points, but I didn't want to lose the availability and didn't have time to deep dive this. I'm not sure if it's possible with JetBlue. Leave me a comment if you know how to do this! Regardless, be on the lookout for part two of this post for our onward redemption flights from DOH to KTM. I'm contemplating a first-class award to Abu Dhabi or Dubai and then fly onwards to Kathmandu form there so that we can get access to the First-Class Lounge in Doha--because--BUCKET LIST! I'm equally excited to experience the business class lounge in Doha as well, but the Al Safwa First Class Lounge and the Qatar first-class experience in Doha is among the very top first-class experiences in the world and one we are eager to try (using our points and miles of course!) Stay tuned to see how that goes!

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