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WestJet’s “Other ATC”: Crouching Surcharge, Hidden Taxes
As of April 30, 2025, there have been significant changes to WestJet Rewards. Please refer to www.westjet.com/rewards for more information on the WestJet loyalty program.
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WestJet RBC® World Elite Mastercardǂ
- Earn 30,000 WestJet points upon making your first purchase†
- Then, earn an additional 30,000 WestJet points upon spending $5,000 in the first three months†
- Plus, earn an additional 10,000 WestJet points after your first year
- Receive an annual companion voucher for discounted travel on WestJet flights, with a co-pay starting at $119 plus taxes and fees†
- Status Lift up to 50 times per year and earn status without flying†
- Free first checked bag for the primary cardholder and up to eight guests on the same reservation†
- WestJet points never expire
- Minimum income: $80,000 personal or $150,000 household
- Annual fee: $119
16 Comments
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Our love of Westjet has been dwindling and this ATC is the cheaters final action. Time to start using my cash back credit cards.
Thank you for confirming what I was starting to notice 😔
I was just pricing out a flight round-trip from Saskatoon to Orlando. When I first priced it out, there was no charge in the “Other ATC” field. However, I realized that I had missed checking the companion voucher box when I initially started my search. Upon going through to the end, there was now an “Other ATC” charge of $40.00. How does that make sense?
The old Aeroplan used to do this as well. They called it “carrier imposed surcharge (YQ)”. Used to collect it for other Star Alliance partners as well. The only problem was that UA would not collect it on behalf of the other Star partners. AC said it just passed it on to the partner airline.
The new Aeroplan does not charge it, but points requirements are up across the board as well as a partner booking fee.
Great heads-up on this fee and it’s effect of eroding the value of the so-called WestJet “dollar”. It’s not worth a dollar , obviously, under these scenarios. “Other ATC” – I suppose some uninformed WestJet Guests may assume it’s something to do with Air Traffic Control and therefore a mandatory charge. In reality, it’s just another Air Travel Charge for some unknown, suspicious reason.
Well, due to Covid, and the government traveI ban i had to cancel a 10 day trip in March of 2020.
They would oy refund me in wj dollars. Fought for a year and a half and finally gave up and rebooked another. Two months later they cancelled all flights to Cayo Coco along with my trip. I asked for a refund again. They gave me back my WJ dollars. So now I have loads of Dollars with a carrier that doesn’t go where I want to go. I complain and they say that wj dollars are transferable. Who the hell would want them?
Interestingly, if you book a cash fare then you can use your WJD to cover the ATC charges. For some reason, on a cash fare the ATC charge is coded as Base Fare and not ‘Other ATC’ like it is on a WJ Member Fare. Just found this out recently.
I was excited to apply for the WJ Mastercard and take advantage of the companion fare along with using the WJ Bonus dollars on a trip to Europe. When it came to booking it, the ATC was so high that there was no point in using the companion fare. I ended up flying to Amsterdam on my own because of COVID and the only way I use use up all the WJD was to book in premium, since the ATC were so high on the regular fare that I could barely use any WJD. Because of this poor experience, I cancelled the card and am sticking with Aeroplan and Alaska Airlines credit cards instead.
No longer useful to transfer Avion points to WJD, but Avion’s other transfer partner, BA Avios is just as bad on supplemental fees flying to Europe. Which sort of begs the question, why does anyone bother trying to collect RBC’s Avion rewards
As if Europe is the only interesting place to fly? Look at other destinations and you’ll see the value in BA Avios and RBC’s Avion.
How about and article on “Using a WestJet Companion voucher”? My third such voucher is about to expire since I’ve never seen any value in using it. Twice I actually had a screen message telling me that the base fare was less than the voucher cost – and that was on transatlantic flights! You can’t use them for business class, you can’t use them on one-way flights back to Canada. Please let us know how we can get value from them?
I just searched for YHZ-GLA in June 2022, and the base fare is literally listed a $1. Yes, ONE DOLLAR. All but $1 of the fare is taxes and Other ATC. Pretty insulting to loyal customers/frequent flyers.
At this point I don’t think anyone flies WestJet because they want to – they do it because they have to.
I liked the explanation and topic and agree with the points raised, but was disappointed with the relatively sparse amount of actual data. Ultimately the advice to take from this is “Western Europe has high OTC, Barbados and Cuba do not”.
So flying South seems better. What about domestic flights? Are these fees affected by class of service? Do they seem affected at all by distance as a secondary measure (i.e. Barcelona being farther than London)?
“Hopefully, their leadership team will then reconsider how they use, position, and market their rewards program.”
Narrator: They didn’t
I read that in the Ron Howard Arrested Development voice. Thanks for the chuckle.
Would be so nice to see them add the ability to use your WestJet dollars for the taxes portion too.