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Starting March 20, 2017 you will be able to fly JetBlue Mint Class, the nicest Business Class experience on a transcontinental flight in the United States, between Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale.

At the moment, you can fly Mint Class on the following routes:

  • New York <-> Los Angeles
  • New York <-> San Francisco
  • Boston <-> Los Angeles
  • Boston <-> San Francisco
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Click here and scroll down until you get to the “Routes” section to see where Mint Class is planned to expand to in the future.

You can already book Mint Class between Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale on jetblue.com. What’s really exciting are the introductory prices. You can find flights for $399 one way.

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What’s the Fuss Over Mint Class About?

Mint seats extend to fully flat 6’8″ beds, the longest on domestic routes, and four out of the 16 Mint seats are fully enclosed suites, which are available for no extra charge (just first come first serve). Mint Class is available on select Airbus A321 flights (listed above).

Mint passengers get everything you’d expect in business class on a premium route:

  • Priority check in, security, and boarding
  • Free multi-course meal
  • Free alcohol
  • Two free checked bags

Mint passengers also receive some amenities that few or zero airlines match:

  • Free wifi
  • Free DirecTV (100 channels)
  • Birchbox Amenity Kit

Mint can be pricey, but far cheaper than competing business class seats. Thanks to Mint’s lower price point, JetBlue’s competitors have generally decreased the price of domestic premium cabin tickets–a very welcome change. 

Check out JetBlue’s page about Mint for more details on the product.

Do You Have to Pay Extra for the Enclosed Suites?

No. Even on the cheapest flights (like the $399 fares between Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale), you have the opportunity to select the enclosed suites in rows 2 and 4 at no additional cost.

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But remember these are first come first serve, so if you want one you’ll probably have to book pretty far in advance.

Mint Class = Most Superior Product and Cheapest

The next cheapest option in a premium cabin between Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale is on United.

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That flight has a connection and does not have flat bed seats (and it certainly does not have enclosed suites).

Availability

Below are calendars (taken from ITA Matrix) of the lowest prices between Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles in Mint Class, from March 20 through April 20, 2017.

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Phew! If you look at the circled price in the drop-down menu of the above calendar, you can see that Virgin America’s price on this route (the only other airline that provide non-stop service) is $849! 10 points for Gryffindor! And by Gryffindor I mean JetBlue.

Here is April 21 – May 21, 2017:

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Those are the extent of the days I see that still have one way fares for $399. Low fare calendars for the other direction (Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale) look very similar.

The $399 fares are appearing only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at this point, but the A321’s with Mint Class will fly daily between the city pair (and increase the frequency to twice daily beginning late April, 2017).

Using TrueBlue Points

TrueBlue point redemptions are based on the cash price of the ticket, so this is also good news for those of you that want to use TrueBlue points.

The cheapest Mint Class tickets between Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles ($399) are pricing at 29,800(?) TrueBlue points, which means you would be getting a value of about 1.3 cents per points. That is about how much I value TrueBlue points, so I would consider this a good use of points– however, there are instances you can get up to as much as 1.6 cents of value per point on economy redemptions.

How to Get TrueBlue Points

  • You earn 6 points per dollar spent on airfare at jetblue.com.
  • Membership Rewards transfer 250 Membership Rewards to 200 TrueBlue points. There is also a $0.60 fee for every 1,000 Membership Rewards transferred to US-based airlines. This is probably not the best way to get JetBlue points as there are better Membership Rewards transfer partners, but run your own numbers to figure out if it’s worth it.
  • The JetBlue Plus card offers 30,000 TrueBlue points after spending $1,000 within three months of opening the account. If you haven’t already, read why the JetBlue Plus card is much more interesting if you also applied for JetBlue’s Virgin America points match promotion.  If you didn’t do the points match and you’re not a frequent JetBlue flyer, than I probably wouldn’t bother with the card as there are much better offers out there.

Bottom Line

JetBlue’s awesome Mint Business Class is expanding to include service between Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale as of March 21, 2017, and you can already book tickets on jetblue.com for prices starting as low as $399 one way. That is far and away the cheapest, highest quality transcontinental premium cabin fare I have ever seen. Fares at that price point will not last so act now if you’re going to act at all.

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