WestJet changed their winter schedule

Thanks for the heads up, I checked after seeing this post and our direct flight has been canceled too and the rescheduled plan has us leaving 2 1/2 hours earlier & arriving at almost 11 pm. :mad: I’ll call our TA in the morning, there’s an early am flight I’d like to get, maybe loosing our direct flight will have an upside of getting us to Orlando around lunchtime (previously 8pm) which would be nice.
 
I think it's hit and miss with all the airlines. I was notified by Air Canada of flight time changes (Flight bumped an hour later), cancellations and being re booked to the earlier flight that day for our first trip to Disneyland with DD. we were put on the &am flight as the 10am was cancelled.
 
Thanks for the heads up. Ours has changed but only by 5 minutes so not a problem at all. I will keep an eye on it though after I've read what happened to you.
 


Wow. This is good to know. We were getting ready to book for the Nov. 27 to the Dec. 7 (or maybe 8) period -- with flying WestJet. But now I think we'll wait a week or two to see/hope they've released and settled their winter schedule a bit more fully.

Right now it was looking like we'd fly down on WJ and back on Air Transat (not sure how I feel about that ...).

We'd prefer to go the mid-morning/late-morning flights (YYZ-MCO, MCO-YYZ) both ways so that we don't have to be at the airport too early or arrive back to Canada too late, as we do have a good drive from the airport.

My feeling is that WJ usually has their "big" semi yearly "sale" around the end of August too. Not sure it's any more "savings" than any of their other "sales" are either but have been waiting on that too. Anxious about it ... wanting to get a good price locked in.

Anyone know if it's better to hold off and book the car rental closer to the time? Usually we do it at the same time as we book our flights but this year it sure doesn't look like they're offering us any big savings to do so.
 
Anyone know if it's better to hold off and book the car rental closer to the time? Usually we do it at the same time as we book our flights but this year it sure doesn't look like they're offering us any big savings to do so.

I would book with Costco now, then keep checking and if the price drops, rebook and cancel the original one. The prices bounce up and down like a yo-yo.

We just got back from DLR and our rental was $211 USD for a week. It was higher when I originally booked it and as it got closer to the date, it jumped to almost $400.
 


Wow. This is good to know. We were getting ready to book for the Nov. 27 to the Dec. 7 (or maybe 8) period -- with flying WestJet. But now I think we'll wait a week or two to see/hope they've released and settled their winter schedule a bit more fully.

Right now it was looking like we'd fly down on WJ and back on Air Transat (not sure how I feel about that ...).

We'd prefer to go the mid-morning/late-morning flights (YYZ-MCO, MCO-YYZ) both ways so that we don't have to be at the airport too early or arrive back to Canada too late, as we do have a good drive from the airport.

My feeling is that WJ usually has their "big" semi yearly "sale" around the end of August too. Not sure it's any more "savings" than any of their other "sales" are either but have been waiting on that too. Anxious about it ... wanting to get a good price locked in.

Anyone know if it's better to hold off and book the car rental closer to the time? Usually we do it at the same time as we book our flights but this year it sure doesn't look like they're offering us any big savings to do so.
We always do two one way flights (usually Air Canada the way down, Air Transat the way back). Never had any issues! We save lots of $$ and get the exact flight times we want by flying two different airlines. No advice on the rental car as we always take the Magical express. But for other travel destinations we have had good luck with costco rates
 
For our December trip we had originally booked a direct flight on the way down to MCO through Westjet (which was bounced 12 hours later --- with no notification at all from Westjet... grrrrrr.... we wound up changing to a flight with a connection --- which would have been cheaper if we'd booked that originally.) We have an AC direct flight on the way back so it will be interesting to see if they live up to it.

I think that we'll likely avoid Canadian airlines altogether for our US flights in the future and just drive (to WDW or other US locales) or go through Jet Blue thru Syracuse instead. Guess the Westjet MC isn't so valuable if Westjet isn't worth paying the premium to use in the first place when their flight schedules aren't firm on booking --- we have until May to decide to keep the card or not... but I'm leaning toward cancelling it... It's not so much that the time changed but the fact that we find out about it from a DIS thread rather than the airline itself --- that is just pathetic when you book direct and know they have your email since they send you 2 or 3 marketing emails per week.
 
Yap, booked WJ with air miles to run wine and dine, direct flight Fri am from Ottawa is now through Toronto, leaves an hour earlier, gets there an hour later. Trying to see if I have other options, but not seeing good ones. Air Miles was good when I called, so I can switch if something else comes up, but since I am running Sat am, I am not seeing many options...
 
So I was digging a bit into this, and discovered a few things:
- the airline scheduling starts about 12 months out, but all times are tentative
- this is, in part, because they want to determine passenger load and maximize revenue
- at the same time, they need to negotiate with airports for runway use, takeoff/arrival times, and gate rental.
- none of this is fully finalized until 2-3 months before the departure time

None of this really explains why WJ has seemingly had more than a few reschedulings. Maybe the averted pilot strike affected this. I wish I knew.
 
Brings back fond memories :(

Booked Dec 2017/ Jan 2018 return flights direct from Charlottetown to MCO with WJ
Last August by chance we noticed someone complaining about some WJ services out of Charlottetown being cancelled and decided check our reservation

The YYG to MCO route have been abolished and our 4hr flight was now 27hours with stopover in Toronto
Change was made to our booking but we weren't notified (after 5days)
We got on to WJ and were able to get a direct flight from YHZ to MCO for our dates but was a tense few hours
 
The part that bugs me is that WJ didn't contact me at all about the change despite the fact we had booked directly with them and had our email on file and we had confirmed full-fare Plus seats booked. They still didn't let us know about the change. They still manage to send us every single offer under the sun -- at least once or twice a week. If they change flights and they have my email address (and I have always had set my comm preferences so they should contact me about changes) .... I should hear about changes to my itinerary from them.... not a Disboard thread. Anything less is completely lousy service. What I have received for paying my full fare months in advance for their Premium Plus price is lousy service - which not OK in any way. I don't see us paying the WJ Plus level premium for this lousy service again in the future.
 
The part that bugs me is that WJ didn't contact me at all about the change despite the fact we had booked directly with them and had our email on file and we had confirmed full-fare Plus seats booked. They still didn't let us know about the change. They still manage to send us every single offer under the sun -- at least once or twice a week. If they change flights and they have my email address (and I have always had set my comm preferences so they should contact me about changes) .... I should hear about changes to my itinerary from them.... not a Disboard thread. Anything less is completely lousy service. What I have received for paying my full fare months in advance for their Premium Plus price is lousy service - which not OK in any way. I don't see us paying the WJ Plus level premium for this lousy service again in the future.

This was our issue - I receive 4 to 5 emails a week from WJ/WJ vacations but they couldn't send out one about changes to schedule (even a generic "we have changed some routes please double check your details")
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Latest posts


Top