I think the "WestJet junk" is much different from the "UA Junk". Both have had their relevance. WestJet <=> Canadiana while UA <=> *A.

I personally welcome a certain amount of comparison with AC vs WS and AC vs UA. The former for competitive reasons, the latter for potentiative purposes.

While there may have been a lot of "UA" promotion at the expense of Air Canada recently, for the most part it has been constructive (albeit having to read between the lines sometimes). It is nice to know the alternatives, and since you can fly UA and earn AE, it is still relevant.

While I have never flown WestJet and haven't really ever had a reason to (since I mostly fly internationally), I think it is great that another Canadian carrier has matured enough to warrant their own discussion forum on FT! To be honest, I'd rather see threads in the AE forum on various WestJet nuggets than "I'm on ACXXXX in lounge YYYY can you upgrade me?" I'm confident that we'll still see relevant WestJet threads in the AE forum.

Regarding UA: Keep the threads going. I truly believe they are relevant, and my feelings aren't hurt if UA happens to be stronger in some areas and AC in others. Don't take these things personal, please! Look at the bigger picture!! Take advantage of the information that people are providing to improve your travel experience! If you are offended, just ignore it and move on. Pretty please?

[addendum]

This may be the Air Canada Aeroplan forum. However, I don't think (and Randy, please correct me if I'm wrong) that this implies a "pro-AE" agenda". I think any good discussion or debate requires positives and negatives. Discussion about El Al's dealings in the middle east are not relevant to this forum. However, discussions involving WestJet, UA, SQ, etc. etc. are. They are useful to most AE customers, even if they don't promote AC directly.

[bias alert - I have flown AC for 90%+ of all the flights I have ever taken and will continue to do so in the near future].

Remember:

AE != AC

When it comes to the sorts of discussion we involve ourselves on FT, I think it is smart to delineate the FFP from the airline even though in most cases the separation is not (yet) formal.