Redeeming WestJet Dollars for WestJet Vacation Packages

Summary: WestJet dollars (WJD) can be redeemed for WestJet Vacation packages, which bundle WestJet flights and hotels (from a variety of brands). Meal plans are included for some destinations (all-inclusive). The cost of vacation packages in WJD is consistently lower than the dollar cost of booking the same flight and hotel separately. To book, you can either book online, call WestJet, or via your travel agent.

An interesting realization came to me as I was recently contemplating how to spend the hoards of WestJet dollars (WJD) I’d accumulated in my WestJet Rewards account over the past years. Numerous times upon looking at WestJet’s website I’ve seen adverts for vacation packages, but for some reason, I’d never stopped to think: “I wonder if one can use WestJet dollars to pay for vacation packages”?

As it turns out, I found the answer to my question buried at the bottom of the FAQ page for WestJet Dollars: 

This was an exciting realization for me (albeit maybe obvious for other experienced WestJet fans). So in this post I’ll try to cover everything I’ve learned about WestJet Vacations and WJD since. Importantly it was worth considering whether these vacation packages actually offer decent value, along with the logistics of making a booking, which is not as straightforward as using WJD for flights.

What are WestJet Vacations?

WestJet Vacations is a travel agency-like subsidiary of WestJet that offers packages for WestJet flights with hotel partners to offer a ‘packaged vacation’. It’s similar to the concept of an all-inclusive vacation, although not all WestJet vacation packages are all-inclusive (in fact most are just flight+hotel packages). 

The nice thing about these vacation packages is that they offer flexibility. This is not something I would have imagined in an all inclusive type package. But in fact, going through the booking process you are able to select from a variety of hotel options and customize your flight itinerary quite extensively as well.

How to Book a Vacation Package using WJD: Three Avenues

Recently, WestJet enabled the ability to redeem WJD for vacation packages when making an online booking. This is a positive change since previously it was required that rewards members either call the WestJet Vacations team or go through their travel agent to book.

However, if you would rather still talk to someone when you make your booking, the other two options are still available. You can contact the WestJet Vacations team by phone at 1-877-737-7001 for assistance in building and booking your vacation package.

I went through making a booking myself using this line recently and noted that it was a fairly straightforward process. Everything I could see online was able to be booked over the phone and I fed them the dates and information.

There is also another way to redeem WJD for vacations: through a travel agent.

Searching for WestJet Vacation Packages

There are two ways to browse for vacation packages. The first is using the default ‘vacation’ search, which is very similar to searching for flights.

You must input your exact Departure and Destination cities, along with exact Depart and Return dates. This isn’t the best because it makes it somewhat challenging to compare how much choosing a different date affects the price, without going through the whole search process again using multiple browser tabs. 

One little trick if you know a little about ‘http’ protocol: you can actually generate additional searches much faster by copying the URL of a search result and modifying the URL parameters (these are variables that appear after the ‘?’ in the URL. Let me demonstrate.

Let’s say I’ve just searched for Hawaii for the dates January 3 – January 10. The URL for this search appears as: 

https://vacationbookings.westjet.com/cgi-bin/resultspackage-plus.cgi?sid=c3607ed6df6c890c829c7eec184211c8&gateway_dep=YEG&child_1_age=&CA_PreviousDomain=&occupancy=S&price_max=&date_dep=20210103&isMobile=false&rooms=1&track_link=&child_3_age=&child_2_age=&sv_query=1&star=&date_ret=20210110&language=en&no_hotel=&Engines=S&nb_adult=1&dest_dep=Honolulu%2C+Oahuxxx79&code_ag=wes&child_4_age=&searchtype=PA&child_5_age=&nb_child=0&alias=wes&first_result=

You can see the two bolded variables, ‘date_dep’ and ‘date_ret’. Obviously, these are the Departure and Return dates. So let’s say I want to see how departing on Monday instead of Sunday will affect pricing. I can quickly replace the date_dep=20210103 and date_ret=20210110 to date_dep=20210104 and date_ret=20210111, respectively.

Anyways, if this is too much of an inconvenience, you can also use the other search method: ‘Vacation Finder’:

This allows you to be a bit vaguer with your search, you can instead specify broader destinations like ‘Beach escape’, Caribbean, or Mexico. You can also leave the duration blank or specify 3-5, 5-10, or 10-14 day durations.

I personally don’t find the Vacation Finder as useful to search. I generally know which return date I have in mind and am more flexible on departure. Although pricing is still a little trickier here because longer durations will necessarily be more expensive which isn’t the case with booking flights.

WestJet Vacation Package Pricing: Is it Fair?

To answer this question, I did a series of ‘trials’ using the following methodology:

1. Create a package with a given flight and hotel combination on WestJetVacations.com
2. Lookup flight price separately on WestJet.com (including taxes) – subtract from WJV total price to get ~ hotel price.
3. Lookup and compare hotel prices from:
   • Aggregator website: Trivago.ca –> Hotels.com
   • Hotel’s website directly

Here, we’re basically trying to determine what is the average price markup by WestJet vacations. I chose to do three trials with different hotel chains for three destinations: Hawaii (HNL), Los Cabos (SJD), and Disneyland Resort (SNA/MCO). All searches were done with 1 adult, 1 room, except for Disney searches which were 2 adults, 1 room.

Hawaii (HNL) (via YEG)

Departure Date: January 4, 2020; Return Date: January 10, 2020 

Hotel Check-in date: Tue. Jan. 05, 2021 ; Hotel Check-out date: Sun. Jan. 10, 2021

Individual Flights Costs (searched Nov. 30, 2020):

Hotel Costs (searched Nov. 30, 2020): 

Los Cabos (SJD) (via YVR)

Departure Date: February 12, 2021; Return Date: February 20, 2021

Hotel Check-in date: Fri. Feb. 12, 2021; Hotel Check-out date: Sat. Feb. 20, 2021

Flights and Costs (searched Dec. 2, 2020):

Hotel Costs (searched Dec. 2, 2020):

Disneyland Resort Vacations (SNA and MCO via YEG) 

For this search, I used the ‘Vacation Finder’ searching ‘Disney vacations’. I also searched using 2 adults, and 1 room.

Departure Date: June 7, 2021; Return Date: June 12, 2021

Hotel Check-in date: Mon. June. 7,  2021; Hotel Check-out date: Sat. June. 12, 2021

Costs (searched Dec. 3, 2020): 

It also looks like you can book your Disneyland/Resort tickets through WestJet Vacations as part of the package. If this intrigues you, we cover how to use WestJet dollars for attraction costs and unique itineraries in our next article of this series.

The Verdict? 

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to see that WestJet Vacations actually offer quite good value within the rewards program. Consistently across all my searches, the total price of these packages works out to mild-to-moderate cost-savings, when compared to booking the flights and hotels separately, including via the hotel’s website directly or third-party booking sites. 

Related: How to Get Free WiFi on WestJet Flights

There are several assumptions at play. For one, I’m assuming you’ll be flying with WestJet. For certain destinations, you might find cheaper flights with other airlines. Furthermore, I’m not considering other savings you could get on your WestJet flights by applying a WestJet companion voucher if you’re flying with two people. For example, the Disneyland Resort (SNA) search shows you’d likely pay a lower total dollar cost by booking the flights with a companion fare and paying cash for the hotel. 

Regardless, I’m confident in saying that you aren’t getting a bad deal by booking a WestJet Vacation using your WestJet dollars. At this point, I see no need to reserve the use of WestJet dollars solely for flights, and I’ll definitely be using mine going forward for both, especially when I’m traveling solo. This applies doubly for those of you who’ve figured out some of the crafty ways to earn large sums of WJD 🙂

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