Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Westjet, American Airlines expand relationship with code share agreement

Following an earlier interlining announcement in October 2010, WestJet and American Airlines have announced a new code share agreement between the two airlines. The agreement will allow each airline to place their codes on the other airlines flights. At this point this means American customers will be able to connect to up to 20 cities in Canada that AA or American Eagle does not serve while WestJet customers will be able to fly on WestJet coded American Airlines flights from Canada to Boston and Chicago. Future arrangements should see the WestJet place their codes on American flights to more cities.

For our readers, the biggest perk here is the reciprocal frequent flyer benefits in the agreement. This means members of either airlines frequent flyer programs will be able to earn AAdvantage miles or WestJet dollars on the code share flights. What is unknown at this time is whether you have to fly a connecting flight on your actual airline to earn miles/dollars or if you will be able to earn those miles for the code share flight only. In most other agreements as long as the flight has your main airline's code then you get the miles/dollars but on some occasions some programs have made it more restrictive that you have to connect to/from a flight flown with your airlines own metal. Hopefully  that will not be the case here as they may attract a few more business customers to the WestJet frequent guest program primarily out east with the numerous flights that AA has from Eastern Canada to Boston and Chicago.

Source: WestJet

2 comments:

  1. Excelent, now I can go to Yellowknife, Winnipeg and some other cities without loosing AA miles!!!

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  2. According to Airline Route Updates these are the proposed code share routes

    Planned Codeshare routes as follows, subject to approval:

    WestJet Operated by American Airlines
    Calgary – Chicago
    Calgary – Dallas
    Halifax – New York JFK
    Montreal – Chicago
    Montreal – Dallas
    Montreal – Miami
    Montreal – New York JFK
    Ottawa – Chicago
    Toronto – Boston
    Toronto – Chicago
    Toronto – Dallas
    Toronto – Los Angeles
    Toronto – Miami
    Toronto – New York JFK
    Vancouver – Dallas

    Between Ft. Myers/Las Vegas/Los Angeles/Miami/Orange County/Palm Springs/Phoenix/San Diego/San Francisco and:
    Albuquerque, Austin, Boston, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas, Denver, El Paso, Ft. Myers, Fresno, Gainesville, Honolulu, Houston, Jacksonville, Kahului, Key West, Kona, Las Vegas, Lihue, Los Angeles, Miami, Monterey, Nashville, New York JFK, Newark, Oklahoma City, Orange County, Orlando, Palm Springs, Pensacola, Phoenix, Raleigh, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Juan, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe, St. Croix, St. Louis, Tallahassee, Tampa, Tucson, Washington Dulles

    American Airlines operated by WestJet
    All US – Canada Routes

    Between Toronto/Calgary/Montreal/Vancouver and:
    Abbotsford, Calgary, Charlottetown, Comox, Deer Lake, Edmonton, Ft. McMurray, Grand Prairie, Halifax, Hamilton, Kamloops, Kelowna, Kitchener, London ON, Moncton, Montreal, Ottawa, Prince George, Quebec City, Regina, Saskatoon, St. John’s Nfld, Sydney NS, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Windsor, Winnipeg and Yellowknife

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