Westjet World Elite Mastercard

[sherilaine]

We LOVE these cards - both my husband and I have one and we each use a companion pass for our two kids - we have likely saved over $10,000 since we got the cards when they first came out!!

 

[lovethesun12]

My husband and I both applied online today and we’re approved, so looking forward to receiving those soon to start racking up points. We’ve got a family of 6, so 2 cards and 2 companion fares will come in handy. Does the flight for the companion rate have to be used within the year, or just booked by then? We’re going to DL sometime January 2019 but can’t book the vacation yet so arent 100% sure of the date and if it’ll fall after the application date and be with our 2nd set of buddy passes or our 1st set. Also, any tips for using your card to maximize points earned?

We were issued a voucher in November 2016. I booked our flight for April 2018 in July 2017. I got another voucher Nov 2017. So to sum up, it just has to be used to book the flight within the 365 days it was issued; it doesn't matter when the flight is.

 

[shaunacb]

We were issued a voucher in November 2016. I booked our flight for April 2018 in July 2017. I got another voucher Nov 2017. So to sum up, it just has to be used to book the flight within the 365 days it was issued; it doesn't matter when the flight is.

This is true. The companion voucher is valid to be booked for a year, but the actual flight can be later than that.

 

[mab2012]

My husband and I both applied online today and we’re approved, so looking forward to receiving those soon to start racking up points. We’ve got a family of 6, so 2 cards and 2 companion fares will come in handy. Does the flight for the companion rate have to be used within the year, or just booked by then? We’re going to DL sometime January 2019 but can’t book the vacation yet so arent 100% sure of the date and if it’ll fall after the application date and be with our 2nd set of buddy passes or our 1st set. Also, any tips for using your card to maximize points earned?

As others have answered, the flight does not need to be taken before the voucher expires, only booked. Terms and Conditions are clear on this:

• Booking must be made before the voucher expiry date; travel may occur after the voucher expiry date subject to flight schedule availability at the time of booking.

But there is one catch: if you need/want to make changes to your itinerary after the voucher expires, you'll lose the value of your voucher.

I've run into this twice. The first time WestJet cancelled my direct flight, which included the use of a companion voucher that had since expired, and I didn't like the flight they moved me to. I called to be moved to a different flight, and IIRC, that was done without issue. Then the day before our flight, the weather looked iffy, and we decided to try to get out ahead of it. At that time there had been no weather advisory issued for our airport, but we were told that we could still make changes because of that original direct flight cancellation. In making the change, however, I was initially told that I would have to use my current, valid companion voucher in place of the expired voucher that was originally used for this flight. I told them that was absurd, the agent went off to talk to a manager, and they "fixed" it. I was relieved that I'd understood what she was suggesting, and was able to argue against it. I was on the phone forever, but they got it done in the end. (Agent was very polite and trying very hard to be helpful throughout, by the way.)

More recently, I booked tickets to Orlando for this March using a voucher that was due to expire. The price had just dropped significantly, and I thought it was a good time to book. Except that a week later the price dropped again, and then went down even further around the Black Friday timeframe. At that point I started to think about making itinerary changes, or even cancelling and rebooking, because the price drop at that point was much greater than the cancellation fee. WestJet has very reasonable change/cancellation fees now, even on their lowest-price tickets. Unfortunately by that time my companion voucher had expired, which meant that instead of making changes, the flight had to be cancelled and rebooked at the new price, and the value of the voucher was lost. The good news was that even then the new itinerary for my family of four worked out slightly cheaper than the original price *with* the voucher... and we got an extra night in Orlando!

 

[JT_Perry]

Darn, wish I knew about this CC earlier. I've already got my tickets booked, and we're flying with WestJet as well. Will definitely have to keep this in mind for future NA trips, hopefully the promos will still be there and they won't raise the cost of the annual fee again

 

[Gracomom]

Probably lots of others already know, but I was so excited to realize our RBC business credit card rewards can also be converted to West Jet rewards. Are you getting West Jet rewards somewhere else too?