A rare status match to JetBlue

Good morning from Baku, the obnoxiously hot capital of Azerbaijan!

But not as hot as these travel tips, so let’s get to it:

• ✈️ JetBlue is offering a rare status match

• 💸 How to save money with Google Flights

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

✈️ JetBlue is offering a rare status match

We’ve seen several status matches pop up this year, but few from U.S. airlines.

JetBlue is an airline that has rarely offered such a status match, so it’s super exciting to see them come out with a fairly lucrative one.

Here is the deal:

If you have elite status with another U.S. airline, JetBlue will offer you a corresponding level of Mosaic status for three months.

During those three months, you can complete certain requirements to extend that status through the end of the following year.

So, let’s back up for a second…

Here is the list of airline statuses that JetBlue will match to:

As you can see, you can only match to Mosaic Level 1 and Mosaic Level 2, and there are many ways to do so.

The exciting part is that although you can’t match to Mosaic Level 3, you can earn it during that three-month period.

Here is what you’ll need to do to retain or upgrade your status through the following elite year:

• Mosaic 1: Earn 10 Tiles

• Mosaic 2: Earn 25 Tiles

• Mosaic 3: Earn 40 Tiles

For reference, “Tiles” are the elite currency of JetBlue, and earning them is very simple to understand:

At the minimum, you can retain Mosaic 1 by simply spending $1,000 on JetBlue flights, which isn’t insane for many flyers.

To be clear, even if you match to Mosaic 1, you can still earn Mosaic 2 or 3 if you earn enough Tiles in those three months, which is awesome.

Having JetBlue Mosaic status can be meaningful, and each level offers some great benefits:

If you earn Mosaic 3, you’ll also get four Mint upgrades, allowing you to upgrade your seat into JetBlue’s famous Mint business class.

JetBlue normally offers something they call “Perks You Pick” benefits, where elite members get to pick some extra benefits.

While this doesn’t apply to members who match to status, JetBlue is still offering a pre-selected perk for each level, which is great:

• Mosaic 1: Mint suite priority, offering a priority selection when you book a Mint suite

• Mosaic 2: Pet fee waiver, worth $125 per flight

So, these are not the most exciting perks, but they could be meaningful to some of you.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

JetBlue rarely offers status matches like this.

Having status with them can unlock some nice perks and even potential upgrade awards to their business-class Mint suites.

If you want to give another airline a try, fill out the status match form here. As a final note, it can take up to four weeks to process applications, so be patient. 😇

💸 How to save money with Google Flights

As you know, I fly on a lot of obscure airlines around the world and book plenty of flights with cash.

My go-to tool for finding flights is, obviously, Google Flights.

But over the years, I’ve started to notice a trend in Google Flights…

It boils down to… what you see is not always what you get. And most of the time, this works in your favor.

Here’s what I mean.

When you search for a flight, you’ll see a results page with various flights and prices.

But as you click through the steps, this price often changes based on the following:

• Various sites and OTAs offering the flight

• Where you currently are based

• Which currency you have set

Let me give you an example. Next month, I’ll be flying from Chengdu, China, to Auckland, New Zealand.

When I was back in Indonesia, I saw a nonstop flight on Sichuan Airlines for $377, a great deal for a 13-hour flight.

But when I went to buy the flight in Kazakhstan, this is what I saw:

So here’s what I did.

At the bottom of the search page, you can adjust your location to be somewhere else.

So, I set the currency to U.S. dollars and then changed my location to Indonesia to try and replicate what I saw here when I was actually in Indonesia.

Sure enough, when I refreshed the page, this is what I got:

By simply adjusting the location setting on Google, I was able to save myself $200.

If you use a VPN, you can also play around with different locations to accomplish the same thing.

Of course, you’ll want to click through to the actual booking site to make sure these prices are accurate.

In my case, it very much was accurate coming from a Google search in “Indonesia.”

Even when you don’t play around with the settings too much, you might find that clicking through to the final booking page will give you better results than expected.

For example, I need to get back to Indonesia from Rwanda later this year, and I saw this flight bookable through Qatar:

Just out of curiosity, I clicked through to Qatar’s website and got this message:

And while that sounds scary, the result was actually a CHEAPER flight than expected, costing $30 less than what I saw on Google. 👇

So here’s the bottom line:

Google Flights is a dirty liar… sometimes. (It’s a joke, Google, so please don’t sue me).

When you’re hunting around for cash flights, don’t take Google at its word.

Instead, try the following:

• Refreshing the page a few times (this surprisingly works often)

• Using a VPN to change your location

• Using Google’s location setting

• Always clicking through to the booking site

Any or all of these things could save you a boatload of money over time.

That’s all for today, my friends!

I hope you enjoyed another week of Daily Drop, and I look forward to seeing you bright and early on Monday morning when I’ll be in yet another new country.

Cheers,

40.4093° N, 49.8671° E