JetBlue

Tidbits for Travelers

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at PHL Airport

Now through October 15, 2024, watch for events at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) celebrating Hispanic and Latino culture.

The lineup includes craft workshops, salsa dance lessons, heritage talks and samplings of churros and other foods from around the world. See the full schedule here.

JetBlue plans to open lounges in NY and Boston

JetBlue is (finally) joining the airport lounge world with newly-announced plans to open a lounge at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) Terminal 5 in late 2025 and Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) Terminal C soon after.

Who will be able to use the JetBlue lounges?

JetBlue says complimentary access to the lounges will be available to holders of a new premium JetBlue credit card, TrueBlue Mosaic 4 members and passengers flying in Mint on transatlantic flights.

TrueBlue Mosaic 4 members and premium JetBlue credit card holders will be able to bring in a guest for free. Annual passes will be available. Day passes and guest passes will be available for purchase by “eligible customers” based on space availability, according to JetBlue. More details to come.

Places we’d go: National Comic Book Day

National Comic Book Day is coming up on September 25 and that makes it a good time to visit the Charles M. Schulz – Sonoma County Airport (STS) in Santa Rosa, CA, where we encountered fun statues of Lucy and Snoopy.

The Charles M. Schulz Museum is nearby, with 3 changing gallery spaces and permanent exhibitions that include Schulz’s recreated studio, a Christo-wrapped Snoop dog house The Peanuts Tile Mural by Japanese artist Yoshiteru Otani featuring an image of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown composed of 3,588 Peanuts comic strip images printed on individual 2 x 8-inch ceramic tiles.

The museum also has a skating pavilion open to the public.

Travel Tidbits: Where to go, what to know, stuff to buy

Early in the week, the inbox is full of tantalizing travel tidbits, news from destinations on our “want” list and fun events in far-off cities that tempt us to jump in the car or get on a plane.

Here’s a sampling:

JetBlue & Spirit: not gonna happen

JetBlue announced on Monday that it reached an agreement with Spirit Airlines to terminate their proposed merger agreement.

That’s a win for travelers, says Going.com’s travel expert Katy Nastro. “Even if consumers don’t fly on low-cost carriers like Spirit, they help to keep fares lower by putting pressure on the legacy carriers. Cheap flight lovers across the board can breathe a bit easier knowing competition is here to stay,” she said.

Want to live and work in space? Here’s what it may be like

(Courtesy of the Museum of Flight)

Wondering what it might be like to live, work, or vacation in space?

Seattle’s Museum of Flight is putting together an exhibit that will offer on clues.

Home Beyond Earth opens June 8 and will be and will focus on space stations past, present, and future with more than fifty artifacts, models, space-flown objects, and uniforms.

Kimpton hotels will loan you accessories.

Now that checked bag prices are up, you may be trying to lighten your load and commit to traveling only with a carry-on bag.

We’ll all for that.

And so is Kimpton.

For guests who have left key fashion accessories at home, the hotel brand now has a collection of items available for loan. At participating properties, the Forgot It? We’ve Got It! Anthropologie Accessories Collection includes bags, sunglasses, belts, necklaces, and other items guests may borrow and, if they like them, buy.

JetBlue makes it easier to earn perks and status


New York-based JetBlue Airways has revamped its True Blue loyalty program, making it easier for both frequent and infrequent flyers to earn incremental perks and attain status with the airline.

You can get into all the nitty gritty details here. But basically, your ‘points’ and loyalty are now measured and accrued in “Tiles.”

And JetBlue customers can earn some desirable perks, even if they don’t fly very often.

In the new program, one tile is awarded for every $100 in qualifying purchases on JetBlue, its associated programs such as JetBlue Vacations, and on flights on its partner airline, American Airlines.

One tile is also earned for every $1,000 spent on any JetBlue credit card.

Every time a TrueBlue member earns 10 (until reaching the airline’s Mosaic status at 50 tiles) they get to pick from a menu of rewards or perks, including early boarding, access to priority screening, a free alcoholic drink each flight, or bonus points. And once selected, a picked perk is valid from the date it’s earned through the end (12/31) of the following year.

JetBlue’s Mosaic tiered status program is also updated.

JetBlue’s tiered status program, called Mosaic, is now also updated with four levels.

Travelers reach Mosaic 1 status with 50 tiles, Mosaic 2 status with 100 tiles, Mosaic 3 status with 150 tiles, and Mosaic 4 status with 250 titles. And, as you may imagine, each tier comes with a better set of perks.

The basic set of perks, granted with Mosaic 1 status (50 tiles) includes:

  • First Two Checked Bags Free.
  • Beer, Wine & Liquor.
  • Even More® Space at Check-In.
  • Same-Day Switches.
  • Early Boarding.
  • Priority Security.
  • Dedicated Check-In.
  • Dedicated Support Line and Priority Chat Assistance.
  • Heathrow Express Upgrade.

The Mosaic 2 tier (100 tiles) grants all of the above perks, plus the ability to book upgraded Even More Space seats during booking.

Mosaic 3 (150 tiles) adds four certificates that let you upgrade from Core to Mint seats.

And the Mosaic 4 tier throws in two more upgrade-to-Mint certificates. Plus 4 one-way BLADE airport helicopter transfers between Manhattan and JFK or Newark (EWR) airports.

And as an added bonus, each time your move up a Mosaic level, there’s another pack of perks to choose from. And that list includes a waiver of the $125 per flight fee to jet with a pet. Which will be very popular.

JetBlue Flying Next To: Amsterdam.

JetBlue’s 3rd European Destination? Amsterdam.

JetBlue announced on Tuesday that it will be adding Amsterdam to its list of international flight destinations.

Service will start between New York’s JFK International Airport and Amsterdam Schiphol sometime “late this summer,” according to a JetBlue statement. And flights between Boston Logan and Schiphol are “to follow,” subject to government operating authority.

JetBlue already flies to London’s Heathrow and Gatwick Airports and will begin flying to Paris in June.

As with its other European flights, the daily Amsterdam route will be served by the carrier’s Airbus A321 Long Range (LR) single-aisle aircraft, which has 114 economy seats (“Core”) and 24 new fully lie-flat private suites with sliding doors.

How Airports & Airlines Marked April Fools Day

We were pleased to see so many airports and airlines – and the National Railroad Passenger Corporation – Amtrak – having so much fun on April Fools Day.

Aviation museums also got in on the fun.

Here are some of the April Fools Day “news items” we encountered. Let us know if we missed some your faves.

UFO Displayed at Seattle’s Museum of Flight

In an April 1 release, the Museum of Flight in Seattle announced it would put on display an unidentified flying object (UFO) recently recovered from a crash site in a remote area in Washington state.

Here’s what it looks like:

Clearly, it’s an April Fools Day joke. But we love that the museum created a full backstory for this UFO:

Following a rash of inexplicable UFO sightings worldwide, the wreckage and debris field from a small disc-shaped object were discovered at a remote desert location near the decommissioned Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state. The UFO was initially detected by NORAD as it raced through the restricted airspace of Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The phenomena continued erratically on a northern flightpath and fiery descent to an impact zone in the remote desert hills of Benton County, Wash.

Military officials quickly removed tons of topsoil from the crash site to preserve any toxic fluids or alien biological matter that may have exited the disc. The object has displayed no signs of hostile intent, but extra security measures will be in place while it is on display at the Museum.

Plenty of airports and airlines got in on the fun. And many ‘announcements,’ such as Charlotte Douglas International Airport’s notice that it was removing the rocking chairs to make more room, no doubt made readers look twice.

But others, like KLM’s recline alert system and Geneva Airports’ ski-through-the-terminal updates aren’t totally silly ideas.