Last week, Virgin Atlantic and WestJet announced that they would deepen their existing partnership by adding reciprocal mileage earning and award redemptions.
There are some restrictions, however. While Virgin customers can redeem their points on any WestJet flight, WestJet customers can use their points only for Virgin Atlantic flights from London Heathrow marketed by WestJet.
For most US-based customers, that won’t affect things much, as Virgin is a partner of every major transferable currency, while WestJet points are much harder to come by.
The News
- You can now redeem Virgin points for WestJet award flights
- WestJet customers can redeem their points for WestJet-marketed Virgin flights from London Heathrow (LHR) to Cape Town (CPT), Dubai (DBX), Johannesburg (JNB), and Male (MLE)
Virgin award chart for WestJet redemptions
Below is Virgin’s award chart for WestJet redemptions (full details can be found here):
Quick Thoughts
WestJet has a fairly extensive route network, with many seasonal destinations, as shown in this route map from Flight Connections:
All that looks exciting, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, at the moment, WestJet flights can’t be found on Virgin’s website; you have to call the Virgin Atlantic contact center to book them.
In addition, there doesn’t seem to be any premium or business class availability on any route. That’s not terribly surprising to me, as I’ve never seen WestJet business class available on other partners like Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Delta, or Qantas (if anyone else has, leave a comment; I’d love to know that it’s possible).
All of that to say, despite the attractive route map and decent long-haul premium and business pricing, most WestJet redemptions via Virgin will likely be used in a similar way to WestJet’s current partner network: in economy class, primarily within North America.
To search for flights online, it seems fairly easy to use Delta.com. The WestJet flights I found there were all bookable through the Virgin phone center, and Virgin’s pricing was better in most cases, before considering transfer bonuses. That said, make sure to check the cash prices as well, as WestJet’s North American economy prices are often quite low.
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I’ve seen business class award availability for WestJet show up on Delta but it’s been about a year.
Delta has a relatively fixed cost for WestJet economy flights (usually 12,500 miles within North America), so this new partnership could price out better for flights under 1,500 miles (much better if you nab a 30% or 40% transfer bonus). Just have to compare the taxes and fees.
How are the fees for booking Westjet with Virgin? Depending on award availability, there could be some sweet spots on the chart.
Altho one interesting thing I noticed is that FB redemptions for Westjet econ flights do not seem to include a checked bag, even for international flights! I hope Virgin is a bit better for that.
do you know if itinerary with stopover(s) is priced separately for each segment, such as JFK-YYC-YVR?
Watch out for Phantom Award space. I was excited to see Westjet bookable through VS. I transferred 42K MR to VS (the night before the transfer bonus was announced from Chase) and I ended up with Phantom availability. Call before you transfer!
It would make sense for WestJet to join Sky Team.
Definitely, they already have a longstanding partnership with Delta where they will recognize status in addition to the ability to book awards with Delta Skymiles. Would give some counter to Air Canada’s monopoly of the Canadian market by Star Alliance. (same goes for Porter if they keep growing – hope they build on the Alaska partnership and join One World)