How I got WestJet Gold Status

Being travel/bucket list blogger means that getting frequent flyer status is my ultimate dream! Free perks, lounge access, and upgrades have the ability to turn a dreadful long haul flight into a dream. Luckily for me, my WestJet Gold status arrived in the mail last week (and no, I haven’t spent thousands of dollars on WestJet flights).

Back in April, I got an email offer from my bank (RBC) with a promotion to get $150 off any WestJet flight and a free upgrade to WestJet Gold status (for 6 months) if I booked a flight between May 15 – May 30th. This deal is now expired and was only offered as a targeted promotion – meaning you have to be selected (not sure what qualifies someone to be selected). This obviously seemed like an amazing deal; there were no strings attached and I didn’t have to sign up for any credit card. I even double checked the email address that the message came from to make sure it wasn’t a scam. Although, I didn’t have any travel plans, so I filed the email away.

A few weeks later, I had made some plans to visit my boyfriend in his new city of Winnipeg and wanted to look up how to get this amazing deal. I went to look up the email and couldn’t find it anywhere – and then I remembered I mass deleted thousands of emails to save room on my computer.

I called up RBC first and asked them if they had the details about this promotion. The people at customer service knew nothing about this, and were trying to convince me to get an RBC WestJet credit card. I asked if there was any way they could look up my file to see what emails had been sent to me. I was told that only the promotions team would have that information, and I wasn’t able to talk to them. 

Next, I tried calling up WestJet customer service. Not surprisingly, they knew nothing about the promotion either. I had almost given up when another email came through my inbox from RBC reminding me that the promotion had started and to book my flight by May 30th. I ended up using the 150 free WestJet dollars to get my flight to Winnipeg at half the cost.

This week, I got a letter in the mail welcoming me to WestJet Gold status, along with gold luggage tags to identify me as a frequent flyer. WestJet Gold status comes with free checked baggage, priority boarding, and lounge access. I absolutely can’t wait for my trip to Winnipeg to experience the gold treatment. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post about my Gold status airport experience!

Although this promotion is no longer valid, it proves that you don’t have to spend big bucks to get frequent flyer status. Definitely be on the lookout for promotions through banks and credit cards. For example, RBC’s WestJet World Elite MasterCard is now offering an upgrade to WestJet Silver status when you register for the card.

If you’re an avid traveler, check out My Ultimate Bucket List for inspiration for your next trip.