What am I missing....WJ $'s please explain.
 

OK I am a recent AC E flyer who'd had enuf and decided to make 2016 the year I finally gave WJ a chance.
So far this year I've done 3 WJ flights and 2 AC ones (I am now booking on sched and price not just slavishly booking AC).
My 3 WJ fights have been YYZ-YWG, YYZ-PHX and YYZ-YYC.

My 2 AC flights have been YYZ-YVR (last gas hope at using E -UP's-----Ha!)
and YYZ-YWG.

I also went out and got an RBC WJ mastercard.

So on AC I have accumulated about 8000 AE miles (there was a bonus on the early year flight), or about 1/2 a short haul flight.
I currently get no other AE points other than when I fill up at ESSO. I don't have an AE earning credit card.

ON WJ I have $15 WJ bucks accumulated (I used the $250 CC bonus bucks n a flight for my mom).
$15!!!
...??!!
Can some one explain this to me?

I really wanted to give a huge middle finger to AC but WJ is not helping their cause in the least.

I find it's a slow process starting out but if you keep flying them throughout the year and can get beyond the $1500 spend you'll end up earning the $35 bonus dollars and 3% from flights instead of 1%. There's also random promotions they put on over the year which I have found to be handy ($25 or $50 email bonuses or bonuses for paying for Plus). Using the Mastercard will definitely increase your total too. My boyfriend has had the card for two years now and he earns way more than I do with just general purchases. He hoarded his dollars until just recently when we went to Hawaii. We've also redeemed the companion fares that come with the MC and for me (yeah, it's his card but I make the travel decisions :) ) the companion fares in Plus are such a great deal. If you fly a lot you can earn more companion fares after reaching gold.

All that said, it all depends on what you want from a program. Do you want to have a couple of discounted fares via Westjet dollars and a companion ticket to LGW each year in Plus or would you rather sit in J on the 787 to Asia or Europe?

Thanks for the detailed response...
 

...no I was just wondering why I was accumulating so slowly?
The $1500 spend will be passed on this recent YYZ-YYC r/t.
Unfortunately I have to use company plastic to books flights so I cannot use the RBC WJ MC for anything other than personal expenses.
My point is if I had stuck with AE I'd easily have enuf points for a short haul just on the 5 flights and would have enuf for a long haul just based on CC spend (if i stuck with an Aeroplan earning card).

My point is I'd have a long haul on AC by now and instead I have $15 in WJ $'s.

The WS program is purely revenue-based. You earned 15 Westjet dollars because you spent $1500.

This is the earn chart, that is why. The grass may be greener but it may also grow slower.

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/rewa...ls/tiers.shtml

Also, it sounds like you are comparing what you earn as an Elite at Aeroplan, to what you earn as no status on WS, which isn't really an apples to apples comparison. If you were no Status on AP, and Gold on WS, your calcs may be different.

For Return on Investment you can earn with WS, but flying with WS is often not a great deal.

Example: Earlier this year, I flew a two-leg cross-border trip on AA, where the "fare" component was CAD 221. And another one on WS, where the "fare" component was CAD 346. I also spend $17 on food (pre-booked).

With AA, I earned WS$ 8 (3.62%). With WS, I earned WS$ 3 (0.87%) on the fare and zilch on the food. As you can see, the return for flying AA was more than 4x the return for flying WS.

Which is why some people advocate crediting to AA when flying WS. But if you don't fly Oneworld and WS a lot, that doesn't make sense. Because:

The one major advantage WS$ have is that you can redeem them in small amounts. (As a WS credit card holder even starting at $1). You don't have to wait and collect until you have thousands of miles for a reward flight.

One of the disadvantages is that WS charges the full GST/HST/etc. when your redeem WS$, although you never paid that money. So you probably want to discount any WS$ you have by 5% to 15%.

OK, my last reply was lazy. Here is the real reason WS is awesome. It is certainly not for the WS Dollars. They are just a bonus. At $4000 dollar spend, you get a BOGO flight anywhere westjet flies in Canada. When used right, this is a perk worth $400-750 dollars, and of course, there are no blackout dates (try using AP on a long weekend). When you spend only another $2000, to reach $6000, you get an anywhere they fly for free BOGO. I have not had one instance where this has saved me at least $1200 dollars (think Caribbean during holiday season or march break). So, if used right, and you spend $6K, you are getting $2K in benefits. Spend an additional $4K, to get to $10K, and you get another flight anywhere they fly. To me, that is a great perk. To some, it is not, but I think that is how you need to compare.

No I've spent considerably more than that....
 

....more like $1600 or $1700 so far this year.
Plus I am WJ Gold, got a status match from my last year as an E on AC.

I would like to add my thanks as this has been informative.

Now if I could only get them to start serving doubles :)

Could your issue be that there are WestJet fares that are ineligible for WestJet dollars as I recently discovered?

He had a typo. He meant $1500, not $150.

Could be....
 

....are there certain fare classes?

Oops...

No, apparently just certain fares.

This is second-hand information from the travel department, but they claim they can't tell if a fare has been stripped of WestJet dollars when they book it.

This was my plight:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/westj...ed-travel.html

Everything has been booked....
 

...thru westjet.com