Book early if using airmiles on Westjet!

[DIS~n~JAN]

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to pass out this advice as I missed out. I thought I had my flight taken care of with airmiles. However, they only allow so many seats to airmiles and when I finally went to book for Jan/06,they were all sold out.

 

[jeffd101]

I tried to use my Airmiles for flights on Canjet for April/06 when the flights were first released by Canjet in July. I was told that Airmiles did not receive any seat allocations from them for that flight.

I laugh when I look at the Gold card benefits which include 2 day advance booking when you had your issue and I had mine. The seats are clearly long gone by then or were never available.

Obviously some people get the seats, but I am glad I didn't count on being able to use the points for flights. I used them for park tickets instead - I know there are people who will say you get less bang for the buck, but at least you can use them for this item.

 

[murcor]

same goes for aeroplan miles (air canada). Only a certain # of seats per flight. I booked in Feb for Jan06 (the 356 days in advance rule- 9 days less a year) I wanted 5 seats could only get 4 (paid cash for the 5th). We were the first people to book anything on that flight points & cash.

We did the same thing last year for Jan05.

Some people shake their heads when we book our trips a year in advance but that is what we have to do to get the seats.

 

[Manon]

You know what I do with my airmiles ??? By some Christmas gifts!!

And once a year we use it to do an activity, this year we went to the water slides in St-Sauveur. We had a wonderfull day and it didn't cost us a pennie!!

 

[tone.def]

I get grocery gift certificates with my airmiles. I'm currently at 1456 airmiles, it's 140 airmiles for $20 gift certificate, so thats.... $200 in groceries!!! hooray!!!

 

[CharlesTD]

If you really want to use airmiles etc for travel then you should look at the TD Gold Travel Visa no blackout dates no restrictions on travel and no limited seats for flights. You can also use it for accomodations rental cars etc. The only limiting factor is if your flight you want happens to be completely sold out otherwise you will get seats.

 

[tmli]

With airmiles don't you have to pay the taxes/service charges anyways?? Travelling here in Canada those amounts are so high it doesn't make using the airmiles worth it...Fly out of Buffalo!

 

[DIS~n~JAN]

With airmiles don't you have to pay the taxes/service charges anyways?? Travelling here in Canada those amounts are so high it doesn't make using the airmiles worth it...Fly out of Buffalo!

Yes the taxes have to be paid, + insurance for $120.00. For the flight I'm taking it would have been $486.00(tax) + 5600 air miles for the 4 of us. Now that I missed out on the airmiles, the total including taxes is $2841.00 + insurance! . I wish I could fly out of Buffalo.

 

[crazy4M]

I just booked an airmiles flight and had the same problem. No West Jet flight seats left for January. Had to use AirCanada which took the same amount of airmiles. And you do have to pay the taxes upfront. They will also book additional flights needed if you need for more people than your airmiles can cover. The cost for this is comparable to the online quote I got from AirCanada (just a little more) but I had peace of mind that all flights were booked together. Also don't forget to purchase cancellation insurance for your airmiles flight.

 

[CharlesTD]

LOL so your so called FREE airmiles flight isn't really free. One more reason to look inot the TD Gold travel Visa.

 

[B&B Mom]

The last time we used aeroplan miles for our disney vacation we found the Orlando connection seats were not available...we ended up flying into Tampa which worked out OK. We got to see a hockey game and went to Busch Gardens which we wouldn't have bothered with if we had arrived in Orlando.

We were planning on renting a vehicle anyway and the drive wasn't that bad at all, so it all worked out.

It's something to think about if you are limited with dates you can vacation but can't get into MCO.

 

[robsawatsky]

LOL so your so called FREE airmiles flight isn't really free. One more reason to look inot the TD Gold travel Visa.

True, but the rewards with TD Gold Travel VISA and other similar CC rewards systems is based upon $ value of the entire package including taxes. So, if you wait, and cheap seats from the airlines are gone, it will take more points. I checked my recent booking on Wesjet, and it would have taken over 50,000 TD VISA points for the trip.

So, they all have their pro's and con's, but I think Airmiles are actually much more useful for non-travel rewards except IF you can get the cheap BMO Mastercard GOLD Westjet flights.

 

[maxie]

With airmiles don't you have to pay the taxes/service charges anyways?? Travelling here in Canada those amounts are so high it doesn't make using the airmiles worth it...Fly out of Buffalo!

For Eastern Canada. Here in Western Canada Air Miles are worth it. It only takes 1400 Air Miles for a ticket to Orlando using the BMO Mosiac Mastercard. Shopping at Safeway you can collect that in less than 6 months if you work at it. With taxes and insurance for 3 of us it costs around $400. To buy the tickets it would be close to $2000. From Winnipeg we can drive to Minneapolis and get cheap flights. However that's an 8 hour drive so you would be wasting 2 days of vacation time driving. Also the flights to Orlando from Minneapolis are not as cheap as out of Buffalo unless you get a really good seat sale.

If using the TD Gold Travel Card you earn 1 point for every dollar and 5,000 points make up $75 worth of travel bonus than you would need appoximately 25,000-30,000 points to get a ticket to Orlando. That would be putting $25,000-$30,000 on your credit card to earn the points.

Using Air Miles you can shop at Safeway using the "spend $200 earn 250 Airmiles" and spend $700 to get 1400 Airmiles to earn a ticket to Orlando.

Is this correct?

 

[DisneyTemp]

I only have aeroplan but I know that redeeming aeroplan points for other than Air Canada tickets is typically a bad deal. Normally I redeem my aeroplan points for long distance flights ( 5 hrs or more) for Business Class, since for me it is usually cheaper to buy economy tickets. My current trips to Orlando I am flying out of Detroit for $149 and $222 taxes included in Canadian Funds. Typically business class tickets are never discounted and point difference makes this a better choice to redeem points.

 

[SplashMom]

I booked my tickets on Westjet using Airmiles about a month ago, but we don't leave until April. Actually, I didn't think it was too bad. I got 4 tickets and paid around $600 fees/taxes/insurance. To purchase the tickets was going to cost around $2800. Unfortunately, we can't drive to anywhere cheaper. As it is, we still have to drive around 5 hours to fly from Halifax. I knew I had to book early so I called with lots of notice. I usually buy our tickets far in advance anyway since I have found they have always been cheaper to buy early.

 

[yxe dad]

I was able to book my Jan flights as soon as they came out. Using my BMO Gold Westjet card I only used 6400 airmiles for 4 flights as opposed to the 26000 it would have cost me without the BMO card. If you can plan your holiday flights 330 days(i think that's when they were released) in advance this option is awesome. The last time I took a flight from Saskatoon to MCO(Feb 2000)it cost $850 on Northwest. When I booked these flights the price was around $780x4 = $3120. Taxes and insurance was only $700, for a savings of $2420. I shop at Safeway, buy gas at Shell and use my BMO Westjet Gold card for most of my purchases, doing this for the past 4 years has provided me with 8 flights to LAX and DL, and 4 upcoming flights to MCO. I will gladly pay the just the taxes on these flights because flying out of Saskatoon is really expensive. When booking these flights you can't be set on certain dates, should be slightly flexible on airports and plan to be on the phone for awhile. When I booked my upcoming flights for Jan 06 I knew the schedule for Westjest's flights into MCO,Tampa, and Ft Lauderdale and was prepared to book into any of these airports for anytime during the week I wanted to leave snowy Saskatoon. As it worked out I got the date and MCO . I'm not saying the airmiles program works for everyone but just because it didn't work for you this time doesn't mean it can't in the future . It worked well for me just as the AP best rate plan has, I'm just glad I can plan this far out.