airmiles collectors...beware!

[slg]

If you are planning on using airmiles for your trip, particularly if its the West Jet special, beware! What they don't tell you anywhere is that they don't offer up seats on every route, on every day, or even more than one or two tickets.

I have been saving up my airmiles so that my family of 5 could go to Orlando, and I have been given the supreme runaround. I went right to the top and all that happened was that a 12 year old(sounded like one) just kept apologizing for all the misinformation and passing the buck that I received.

I found out that a family of 5 couldn't book any flights in April/May as they only released 4 tickets per flight. and then again only on some select flights at the worst times (we'd have to overnight in Toronto). If I wanted to pay for the extra ticket, it would cost a fortune! But if I paid for it myself, there is no guarantee our party wouldn't be split up if there were any schedule changes. Coming all the way from BC with 3 small kids, I didn't want to take the chance.

It was all very disappointing, and frustrating! I ended up just buying all my tickets, but my husband was very unhappy as he had only agreed to go if I could get the flights for free. Of course since we had told our kids, we couldn't back out of it. (plus we've already booked our disney cruise!)

My advice is not to count on Airmiles. If you can even get through and talk to anyone, don't plan on using your miles for a specific trip as you may be very disappointed! Even if you book the minute the tickets are released. (and since no one will tell you that date, you basically have to call every single day), they may only release a couple of seats for a whole week.

So much for no blackout periods.

What a racket!

 

[F4disneyfan]

This is why we love our TD Gold travel card no blackout dates no specific airlines you can use whoever you want for whenever you want.

 

[Mortlives]

I find we don't accumulate Airmiles fast enough to make booking flights practical. I use them for hotel rooms en route (we prefer driving, anyway).

 

[mejaie]

Sorry things did not work out for you.

Timing may be everything but other than Grover taking the departure flights on the day we wanted, we booked 4 people on our 2nd choice dates.

I guess until I am refused or denied, I will still faithfully collect my miles.

 

[runner26.2]

I'm sorry to hear about your awful experience with Westjet and Airmiles. I've collected for a number of years and have had no diffculty getting flights to Philadelphia, boston, new york or Orlando. HOWEVER, I've never tried to get tickets with Westjet nor have I ever tried to get 5 on any flight. The most I've ever booked on one flight was 4 and didn't seem to have any difficulty doing that. Having said that I booked at least 6 months in advance, much like you tried to do. If Westjet only ever has 4 seats on any given flight available for airmiles it really doesn't make that a practical solution for many travellers.

 

[Charleyann]

Buy all your tickets with them. You can Buy Disney, Seaworld , Busch Garden and can use for car rentals and Hotel. At least, you won't have the expense of tickets if you haven't already bought them!

Charleyann

 

[almacdonald]

Count me in as another PO'ed airmiles customer. We tried to get 2 tickets, TWICE, and were denied! We ended up using twice as many airmiles, flying on AC with way worse flight times. Airmiles sucks! When we called to book our flight to Vegas, the guy on the phone suggested we could book hotel rooms instead of flights since we couldn't seem to get a flight. We said "It's called AIRmiles, there's a picture of and AIRplane on the card. If i wanted to collect points to stay in a hotel, i'd sign up for a HOTELmiles card. The call ended badly, let me tell you.

Westjet Mosaic Mastercard + Airmiles = Evil

 

[drag n' fly]

I redeem for passes only because the first time we redeemed for air tickets I had to pay the taxes on top even though we had enough airmiles to cover everything. The taxes were as much as the flights Calgary to Victoria. This week I redeemed for passes for my kids on the Banff Gondola and passes to the Calgary zoo lights. No cash transactions... redeem miles get reward and then you avoid ending up with a bum merchandise product that you dont like or breaks down or getting soaked for flight taxes. The good thing about threads like this it informs the rest of us to read the fine print and ask questions.

 

[slg]

I wrote the original post, and I'm not saying I wouldn't try ever to book airmiles for flights. If you have a Westjet gold mastercard, the flights are really cheap on airmiles (7000 airmiles to Orlando from Victoria for a family of 5). (We flew to Nova Scotia from Victoria this summer). However, I warn everyone not to count on airmiles if you have a narrow window to go on your vacation, or if you have a family of more than 4.

I had the most horrendous experience that I won't go into details with here, but the upshot is BEWARE! We are fortunate that we could afford the extra $$5000 for our flights, otherwise we would have had to cancel a cruise we booked last May and that our kids are all excited about.

I guess if something seems to good to be true, it usually is.

We're still going to WDW and our Disney Cruise but we'll definitely have to watch our pennies more.

 

[Pharmguy]

the guy on the phone suggested we could book hotel rooms instead of flights since we couldn't seem to get a flight. We said "It's called AIRmiles, there's a picture of and AIRplane on the card. If i wanted to collect points to stay in a hotel, i'd sign up for a HOTELmiles card.

ROFLMAO.

I just used up a hefty portion of my airmiles to buy a 7 day Disney pass for my mom. It took me 10 years to get enough points to actually fly anywhere decent and the dates always seem to be blacked out.

In 3 years of PC Points, I have redeemed 4 times the rewards that my airmiles card has provided. Even my Visa has a better return on points.

I'll continue to collect airmiles but I'll never expect to actually use them to fly somewhere.

Jason

 

[MousekaMaddi]

i just used my american airmiles for3 round trip tickets to disney last month, we flew free no prob and i couldnt believe it, cool! loved it!

 

[almacdonald]

Hey Pharmguy! to the Disboards. Funny that you joined in February yet the first thing that has inspired you to post was your hatred for airmiles! We've got like 10,000 airmiles and at this rate, that's a whole lot of toasters!

 

[calena]

We book for a family of five with AirMiles. We booked five WestJet tickets to Las Vegas. Had some difficulties, but the Airmiles were basically half of what we would have used if we flew Air Canada. I find you have to be flexible with it, but it is annoying to not just be able to get the flight you want when you want it. The taxes are also annoying. MUCH higher than if you booked with an airline. I think our 'tickets' were about $800 in taxes. I also bought the cancellation insurance etc which I don't think I will do again because I heard bad things about it on this board. So basically I paid $1000 for tickets which If I would have bought them at the time, including insurance, would have been about $3,700. So you do get a good deal, but it is not free. You also have to book in advance. We booked in August for October. We also used AirMiles this year for Air Canada and flew to Antigua, once again the five of us. Last year we flew to Orlando with the five of us. Still thinking about what we will do this winter if anything. That is what is annoying about booking so far in advance for a free ticket!
Deb

 

[almacdonald]

We book for a family of five with AirMiles. We booked five WestJet tickets to Las Vegas. Had some difficulties, but the Airmiles were basically half of what we would have used if we flew Air Canada. I find you have to be flexible with it, but it is annoying to not just be able to get the flight you want when you want it. The taxes are also annoying. MUCH higher than if you booked with an airline. I think our 'tickets' were about $800 in taxes. I also bought the cancellation insurance etc which I don't think I will do again because I heard bad things about it on this board. So basically I paid $1000 for tickets which If I would have bought them at the time, including insurance, would have been about $3,700. So you do get a good deal, but it is not free. You also have to book in advance. We booked in August for October. We also used AirMiles this year for Air Canada and flew to Antigua, once again the five of us. Last year we flew to Orlando with the five of us. Still thinking about what we will do this winter if anything. That is what is annoying about booking so far in advance for a free ticket!
Deb

So did you book 3 months in advance or 15? I'm confused. I tried booking 7 months out and no dice!

 

[CindyAnn]

I second the idea of using your Airmiles Points to at least book Disney passes, and save a bit of money. We're travelling this year with a family of 5, and they booked all 5 of their 7-day Disney passes with Airmiles. They arrived (registered mail, if I recall correctly) about a week after being ordered.

Cheers,

 

[FrenchSnowWhite]

We are also a family of 5, and it would take us at least 20 years to have enough to fly.

We used them for the park tickets, : Sea World, Bush Garden etc....

We also used them for our X-Mas gifts.

 

[slg]

With a gold westjet mastercard, you really don't need that many points to fly. We collect about 7000 or 8000 airmiles a year,enough for our family to fly somewhere. We went to Nova Scotia in August this year, last year we went to San Diego, year before we bought Disneyland passes with them.