Qantas and Canadian airline WestJet joined forces as code-share partners in 2014 and today they extended the friendship further with a reciprocal frequent flyer agreement.
Members of the airlines’ frequent flyer programs can earn their choice of WestJet dollars or Qantas Points when travelling on flights of either airline.
WestJet first took flight in 1996 as a domestic airline in Canada, and had carried three million passengers within two years. They went international in 2004 with flights to the USA and have since further extended into Central America, the Caribbean and United Kingdom. WestJet consistently win awards for customer service and they have a great reputation for their friendly staff.
WestJet executive vice-president, commercial, Bob Cummings, said “We are thrilled to team up with Qantas to bring significant benefit to guests of both airlines.”
“We are confident that our members are going to love earning WestJet dollars while flying on the Qantas global network, and we are equally excited to welcome Qantas frequent flyers aboard and offer them a new opportunity to earn Qantas Points everywhere WestJet flies. This will be a significant improvement to our reward program value proposition,” Cummings continued.
Effective now, Qantas Frequent Flyers can also redeem Qantas Points on Qantas code-share flights operated by WestJet, giving Qantas Frequent Flyers access to numerous WestJet destinations throughout Canada and the USA when connecting to or from a Qantas international service. Both airlines are currently working on plans to introduce fully reciprocal redemption between the airlines in 2017, so WestJet members will be able redeem on Qantas flights and Qantas Frequent Flyers will be able to redeem on WestJet flights.
There are now over 150 city pairs available (inclusive of the American Airlines and Alaska Airlines partner services), including Honolulu to Vancouver, Los Angeles to Calgary, and New York City to Calgary & Toronto.
While there’s been no official word from either airline about whether or not status credits are earned in the same way, on checking the Qantas points calculator (which has been updated already with WestJet routes) there is no indication that status is part of the deal.
