WestJet Rewards - WestJet introduces first frequent flyer program partnership

CALGARY, June 27, 2012 /CNW/ - WestJet today announced a new agreement with American Airlines that will allow WestJet Rewards members to earn WestJet dollars on flights marketed and operated by American Airlines and its affiliates, American Eagle and AmericanConnection. The agreement provides WestJet Rewards members with the ability to accumulate WestJet dollars faster, especially those guests flying within American's extensive worldwide network of destinations.....


http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1000353/westjet-introduces-first-frequent-flyer-program-partnership

Not only that but.......

Woohooooooo....earn AA miles for WS flights

Earn Miles
Earn miles when flying on WestJet marketed and operated flights for travel on an eligible published fare ticket.

What is an eligible published fare ticket?

Eligible published fare tickets must be:

Booked in a eligible booking code — find the fare booking code by looking for a single letter which immediately follows the flight number on your ticket. Next, compare this booking code against the airline's "Earn Miles" chart below to determine whether or not it is eligible to earn base miles and, at what percentage base miles will be accrued.
On an eligible routing — check the airline's "Earn Miles" chart below to determine if any origin and destinations are excluded from earning base miles.

Valid for flights on/after June 27, 2012

Class of Service Purchased Fares Booked in: Base Miles Class of Service Bonus Miles
Economy Class Y, V, B, Q, L, M, P, G, X, D 100% 0%

The AA miles don't appear to be status miles.

But still, with this, who would ever bother with WestJet dollars?

Kettles perhaps who are unaware. Doubt WS will publicize the AA option in Canada!

Check out the crappy earning when using WestJet Rewards on AA flights:
http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/rewards/partners/american-airlines.shtml

Its down right depressing. :td:

The AA miles on WS flights appear to be missing a few fare buckets. Specifically the following fare buckets are missing from AA.com webpage:
- R, U, S, J.

WS has the following codes per expertflyer:
- Y V R B Q U L M P S G J X D

AAdvantage webpage lists the following acceptable fare codes:
- Y V B Q L M P G X D

What are the RUSJ codes used in the WS system?

Pretty sure I have not seen those codes on a ticket

I am traveling on WestJet flights later this week. I called WestJet to learn how to add my AA Advantage number to my WestJet booking. The agent at the Calgary Call Centre adamantly stated that AA miles can only be earned on AA codeshare purchases for WestJet flights. The agent refuted the words posted by Altaflyer in post #2 of this thread, about earning AA miles on a pure WestJet reservation.

Has anyone successfully got their Advantage Number linked into a WestJet reservation, and got WestJet to acknowledge this earning provision?:confused:

Who cares what WS says, call AAdvantage to confirm and keep your BPs. Get WS to add the AAdvantage number at the airport. Likely agents are not trained on the phone lines.

I am traveling on WestJet flights later this week. I called WestJet to learn how to add my AA Advantage number to my WestJet booking. The agent at the Calgary Call Centre adamantly stated that AA miles can only be earned on AA codeshare purchases for WestJet flights. The agent refuted the words posted by Altaflyer in post #2 of this thread, about earning AA miles on a pure WestJet reservation.

Has anyone successfully got their Advantage Number linked into a WestJet reservation, and got WestJet to acknowledge this earning provision?:confused:

What about when you go to Manage your Booking online? When booking new flights you're able to select American Airlines in the Frequent Flyer dropdown.

When I did OLCI last week there was no option to add an AA FF#.
I tried to add at baggage drop. The agent said I had to send the boarding passes to AA.
I will do OLCI again today. We'll see if the system has caught up.

Look here (http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/westjet.jsp)on aa.com. It states as of 27 JUN 2012, "Earn miles when flying on WestJet marketed and operated flights for travel on an eligible fare - Y, V, B, Q, L, M, P, G, X, D" (redeemable, not Elite-Qualifying, and if the fare is not one of these, it is ineligible). Just like Altaflyer said - but not every airline agent is well trained or informed.

Try at the airport if you can not do so before, and if you still can't keep the ticket number and proof of flights (e.g. boarding pass) so you can claim them from AA later - send facsimiles / copies, never the originals.

I am traveling on WestJet flights later this week. I called WestJet to learn how to add my AA Advantage number to my WestJet booking. The agent at the Calgary Call Centre adamantly stated that AA miles can only be earned on AA codeshare purchases for WestJet flights. The agent refuted the words posted by Altaflyer in post #2 of this thread, about earning AA miles on a pure WestJet reservation.

Has anyone successfully got their Advantage Number linked into a WestJet reservation, and got WestJet to acknowledge this earning provision?:confused:

Has anyone found anything on this?

How do I find out the booking class ?

My Westjet ticket is showing "Fare Basis: GCRSO1"

Does it qualify for getting AA miles ??

The class is the first letter of the Fare Basis, so your class is G. From AA.com:

Valid for flights on/after June 27, 2012
Purchased Fares Booked in: Y, V, B, Q, L, M, P, G, X, D

Therefore your ticket is eligible for 100% AA miles flown.

Doing OLCI right now (Aug 5th, 2012) and STILL no place to enter AA Mileage number, will try at SNA tomorrow - assuming at an outstation like SNA zero chance anyone will know what to do.

So for a new Westjet flyer, would folks here recommend people sign up with American Airlines instead of Westjet?

I will likely be taking Westjet for 3-4 return trips per year. I don't fly to the US often, though could use AA sparingly. Thoughts?

So for a new Westjet flyer, would folks here recommend people sign up with American Airlines instead of Westjet?

I will likely be taking Westjet for 3-4 return trips per year. I don't fly to the US often, though could use AA sparingly. Thoughts?

WestJet Rewards is a very nice rewards program. You get actual $ not some miles that can be devalued at any time. And even if you have only 1 westjet dollar, you can use it towards your next booking (not towards fees and taxes).

Unless you are looking for a higher status on AA and its partners, I would choose Westjet rewards.

I know I can get my WJ flown miles added to my AAdvantage account by calling AA and submitting the tickets. However, does anyone know how I can 'validate' my AA Priority Access status with WJ? I am flying out of Chicago and it would be nice to by-pass the lines at the airport with the Priority Access and the additional free bag.

I don't think that you can get elite benefits on WS, at least not currently. Keep your fingers crossed that WS becomes a full-fledged oneworld member one day.

WestJet Rewards is a very nice rewards program. You get actual $ not some miles that can be devalued at any time. And even if you have only 1 westjet dollar, you can use it towards your next booking (not towards fees and taxes).

Unless you are looking for a higher status on AA and its partners, I would choose Westjet rewards.
Yes, you can use WS Dollars anytime. But you hardly get any at all for a flight. Assuming that you use your AA Miles intelligently (for expensive fares), they are a much better value.

I know I can get my WJ flown miles added to my AAdvantage account by calling AA and submitting the tickets. However, does anyone know how I can 'validate' my AA Priority Access status with WJ? I am flying out of Chicago and it would be nice to by-pass the lines at the airport with the Priority Access and the additional free bag.

At WS all customers are treated equally.

Not only that but.......

Woohooooooo....earn AA miles for WS flights

Earn Miles
Earn miles when flying on WestJet marketed and operated flights for travel on an eligible published fare ticket.

What is an eligible published fare ticket?

Eligible published fare tickets must be:

Booked in a eligible booking code — find the fare booking code by looking for a single letter which immediately follows the flight number on your ticket. Next, compare this booking code against the airline's "Earn Miles" chart below to determine whether or not it is eligible to earn base miles and, at what percentage base miles will be accrued.
On an eligible routing — check the airline's "Earn Miles" chart below to determine if any origin and destinations are excluded from earning base miles.

Valid for flights on/after June 27, 2012

Class of Service Purchased Fares Booked in: Base Miles Class of Service Bonus Miles
Economy Class Y, V, B, Q, L, M, P, G, X, D 100% 0%

Deleted - - missed the part about WJ marketed flights, as opposed to AA marketed codeshares on WJ metal.

.

So for a new Westjet flyer, would folks here recommend people sign up with American Airlines instead of Westjet?

I will likely be taking Westjet for 3-4 return trips per year. I don't fly to the US often, though could use AA sparingly. Thoughts?

Using AA miles for award flights could be dicey, depending on the time of year.
The number of AA miles needed for an award flight could be astronomical.


As previously mentioned, AA elite status has benefits, but WJ marketed flights do not accrue towards the minimum 25,000 miles flown needed for AA elite status.

.

At WS all customers are treated equally.
Until 2013 when premium economy or whatever it will be called gets launched.

Does anyone know if we can claim both Westjet dollars and AA miles by submitting boarding passes to AA - or are we restricted to one or the other?

Doing OLCI right now (Aug 5th, 2012) and STILL no place to enter AA Mileage number, will try at SNA tomorrow - assuming at an outstation like SNA zero chance anyone will know what to do.

Meant to post back sooner, but been off FT. SNA contract agents entered my AA number no issues on the record - they said they were trained on entering AA numbers in a record - however still waiting on the miles to post

Does anyone know if we can claim both Westjet dollars and AA miles by submitting boarding passes to AA - or are we restricted to one or the other?

Pretty sure you can't double dip.

Just booked a flight from LGA to YYZ on WestJet. No place to add my AA number in the booking. Called WestJet customer service and asked them to add my AA freq flyer number to the reservation, they told me that they do not give AA miles for flights operated by WestJet. I told her that was in direct contrast to what is on AA's website. Have sent an email to AA's customer service to inquire..... Not sure if it was just the customer service person that was wrong....

What website did you use to book the flight? Whenever I book on westjet.com, I can add my AA number when I enter all my details.

Booked on westjet.com, didn't see an option to add a freq flyer number, while making the reservation, although it is possible I may have missed it. Looked again in "Manage My Trips" but don't see the option to add a freq flyer number.

Confirmed - there is definitely a place to add your AA number - the field says something like frequent flyer number and it is defaulted to Westjet but the drop down has an AA option :) Hope it works!

Anyone get their miles posted to their AA account? How long did it take?

Don't recall the exact time. Within a couple after asking for the credit from aa.com

I had the AA FF number added to my WS reservation before travel and the miles posted about 10 days after the flight.

Surprising to see how soft a launch this is.

I just stumbled upon this information on the AAdvantage website.

I checked WJ fares and it doesn't even show a booking class when you attempt to book a fare.

Despite this, I think it's great news for Canada which has been a one trick pony with Aeroplan for so long.

In YKF we have both AA and WestJet. There is hope that both of these airlines will expand service within the year. So, this is great news for travelers on the Mississauga-Woodstock-Owen Sound-Hamilton area that want to avoid YYZ.

However, the elite qualifying exclusion is a real bummer! My flying is split 50% Domestic/45 International/5% International. This means that only 50% of my travel is credited! :(

So, the excitement quickly turns to dilemma.... AAdvantage ex-YKF with miles but no accumulation, or Aeroplan ex-YYZ with Miles and Status.:confused:

Wow, last I posted in this thread it took about 2 weeks for my miles to post to my AA account. This time only 4 days!

Yeah, they're non-status miles, but at least my AA miles are not expiring on me, and with all the cross country travel I'm doing, I'll have a free trip to Dallas via AA in time for a seminar I'm taking in the new year! :)

For those who are trying to get an unknowing agent to add your AA account # to your itinerary, and they say that American Airlines doesn't appear among the list of ff program possibilities (only Westjet Rewards), tell them to select "future" from the drop down list. Your boarding pass will show "Future/?Venir" along with your AA number on the bottom right under your seating assignment.

Check out the crappy earning when using WestJet Rewards on AA flights:
http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/rewards/partners/american-airlines.shtml

Its down right depressing. :td:

It's still better than nothing