WestJet Rewards - US departures booked in USD

Has anyone else had this happen? I went to book a OW LAS-YQR leg and the WS website would only calculate the fare in USD. I couldn't figure out a way to change this on the site, and really don't feel like paying Visa to do a conversion. Neither the AC.com or UA.ca sites calculate the fare in USD on a OW.

Same happens from HNL.

YOu might be able to 1) call WS to purchase, or 2) look it up on a Canadian travel website (Expedia.ca, Ticketpilot.ca, Travelocity.ca) and get it priced in CAD.

Pain in the arse, for sure, I agree.

Here is the response that I got to my note to WS on this question (I was hoping there was a work-around on the USD thing via the website). It is possible to book in CDN $ via third party vendors, but I don't want to do that. We were debating between leaving late in the afternoon on the Sunday of our stay, or spending the night and getting the non-stop from LAS to YQR. It is better for us to be back earlier on the Monday than WS would get us in, but until the USD issue came up we had decided to work with the schedule as is. Having had time to reconsider, we'll just go with UA through DEN on the Sunday. Yup, miss a night in LAS, but work does beckon. If WS hadn't made us hesitate, though, we'd have that extra night to rock the town :eek:

"
Dear Arf04,
Thank you for your email.

Our guests who originate in the US will be charges in US funds. The reason for this is because the point of sale is in the US and we therefore charge in US funds. This information is on our website; after the fare, USD is listed. If the future, if you book a round trip originating in Canada, you will pay only in CDN funds.

I am sorry if you are disappointed with this. I have shared your concerns with our Marketing and Revenue Teams for their review and information. This will encourage them to reassess this policy.

Sincerely,

XXXXX
Specialist - Guest Relations
WestJet

An update: the WS fare dropped almost $100 after the seat sale ended (!) so I booked the non-stop after all. We'll just have to suffer and struggle through an extra overnight in LAS...

I did book on the WS site, though I still object to paying in USD on the pretext that point of sale is in the US. I don't like using Expedia, etc., or I could have booked the same fare in CDN. Hopefully, this policy will change.

Hopefully, this policy will change.

It should change because it is nonsensical. It probably is a simplistic solution in an attempt to make it look more $US friendly to real US origin traffic. The counter example doesn't seem to be true though - e.g. Alaska Airlines bills me in $US if I book a one-way originating at YVR. Some US airlines have .ca websites and a few of those charge in $CAN regardless of originating airport, one-way or round-trip.

It should change because it is nonsensical. It probably is a simplistic solution in an attempt to make it look more $US friendly to real US origin traffic. The counter example doesn't seem to be true though - e.g. Alaska Airlines bills me in $US if I book a one-way originating at YVR. Some US airlines have .ca websites and a few of those charge in $CAN regardless of originating airport, one-way or round-trip.

It certainly is non-sensical. The point of sale in my case surely wasn't in the US so that argument doesn't work, and there must be a fair number of Canadians who book one way fllights ex US for a variety of reasons or don't book the round trip right away. The CSA who responded to me seems to see this, however, so there is hope.

If this might be a regular occurrence (and if you do a lot of US travel) you might consider getting a US-dollar credit card. I have one from BMO but I know other banks have one. I also have a US-dollar bank account. I only pay about 1% to exchange currency and I do it when I pay my $US credit card bill (if I don't have enough $US in the US account).

I prepaid a Manhattan hotel room and got charged four times in error. The hotel quickly fixed it but the exchange hit on each transaction ended up being significant. Having a US-dollar card means I don't care because I only pay once, at the end. All transactions including payment are in US dollars.

With the amount of US travel I'm doing (4 times this year) plus online shopping, it's been a worthwhile card to have.

It should change because it is nonsensical. It probably is a simplistic solution in an attempt to make it look more $US friendly to real US origin traffic. The counter example doesn't seem to be true though - e.g. Alaska Airlines bills me in $US if I book a one-way originating at YVR. Some US airlines have .ca websites and a few of those charge in $CAN regardless of originating airport, one-way or round-trip.

It is the way they have set it up on their website. Sabre is more than capable of converting it to Canadian dollars but as far as I know Westjet only has the Canadian booking site so in order not to screw up people who are booking from another country it only quotes it in the currency that is used from this country. Since most of their international destinations use USD for their airfares it makes it simple.

If this might be a regular occurrence (and if you do a lot of US travel) you might consider getting a US-dollar credit card. I have one from BMO but I know other banks have one. I also have a US-dollar bank account. I only pay about 1% to exchange currency and I do it when I pay my $US credit card bill (if I don't have enough $US in the US account).

I prepaid a Manhattan hotel room and got charged four times in error. The hotel quickly fixed it but the exchange hit on each transaction ended up being significant. Having a US-dollar card means I don't care because I only pay once, at the end. All transactions including payment are in US dollars.

With the amount of US travel I'm doing (4 times this year) plus online shopping, it's been a worthwhile card to have.

I don't think I'll be booking WS ex-US too often. This was a special case as I knew when I needed to be in LAS but didn't know exactly when I would be done so I only booked the one-way as the fare was good. In the end, I prefer to fly AC or UA to the US, but given the option of a non-stop on a good schedule I'll always go for that.

We do travel to the US a fair bit so will look into a USD credit card as you suggest--that might be well worth doing.