WestJet Group Travel Booking: A Guide for Organizers

The border, and whose problem it is

On a cross-border trip the documentation is each traveller's own responsibility, but the organiser is the one standing at the airport when it goes wrong.

Confirm for every person, early:

• A valid passport, with validity well beyond the return date.
• Whether they need a visa or an electronic travel authorisation to enter Canada, or a visa to enter the United States. This follows nationality, not residence, and a party of colleagues or relatives can contain several different cases.
• Names exactly as printed on the travel document.
• Anyone with a past criminal matter or immigration issue — Canada takes this seriously and it needs resolving well in advance, not at the airport.
• Consent letters for minors travelling without both parents, where expected.

Collect a photograph of each passport page at the start. On a cross-border trip this single step prevents the two most common failures at once: a mismatched name and an expired document.

Seat holds, substitutions and reducing the group

Holding seats without names is the central benefit — a team can commit to twenty-two seats before the squad is picked, and a reunion before the relatives reply.

Substitutions are generally permitted within the contract rules and up to a deadline. On a cross-border trip this matters more than usual, because the traveller who withdraws is often the one whose documents did not come through.

Releasing seats beyond the allowance carries a charge. Read the clause and hold a realistic number rather than an optimistic one.

What it costs

Group booking versus separate tickets

What to ask your travellers for, and when

A message you can adapt:

"We are holding [number] seats to [destination], departing [date] and returning [date]. The all-in cost is [amount] per person, which covers the flight and [state exactly what: one checked bag / no checked bag / seat selection]. By [your date, two weeks before the contract deadline] I need [deposit] and a photograph of the passport page you will travel with. Send the photo rather than typing your name — the ticket has to match the passport exactly. Tell me which country issued your passport, because entry rules depend on that and some of you may need to apply for something before we go. If your passport expires within the next year, tell me now."

Set your own collection deadline a fortnight before the airline's, take each person's money before paying the airline rather than fronting it, and agree in advance what happens to a deposit if someone cannot travel.

When a group booking is the wrong answer

• Fewer than ten travelers.
• A party scattered across many cities who would each route differently.
• Departing within a few weeks.
• Dates still moving.
• Documentation unresolved for several people. A deposit paid before the party is cleared to travel is money at risk.

Sun destinations, and why the dates behave differently

A large share of WestJet group travel is not cross-border at all — it is parties heading from Canadian cities to the Caribbean and Mexico in winter. Those routes behave quite unlike a year-round city pair, and it changes how early you should move.

• The season is finite. Many sun routes operate from late autumn to spring and then stop. A group booking across the edge of a season needs checking against the published schedule rather than assumed.
• Frequency is lower than on a trunk route. Two or three departures a week is common, so a disruption has fewer alternatives and a group feels that far more than an individual does.
• Demand is concentrated. School holidays and the weeks either side of the new year are when everybody wants to go, which is exactly when a held fare is doing the most work for you.
• Build a buffer day if the trip connects to anything fixed — a wedding, a cruise, a resort booking with a cancellation deadline.
• Check the return as carefully as the outbound. On a thin seasonal schedule a missed return can mean several days, not several hours.

For these trips the honest advice is to hold early or not at all. Six weeks before a Christmas departure there is usually nothing left to protect, and the group route adds process without adding value.

How Fond Travels can help

• Both options priced side by side — group quote and separate-ticket total, bags and taxes included, on your real dates.
• A clear answer on which bundle you are buying and what it leaves out, before you circulate a figure to twenty people.
• A document check before you pay a deposit — nationalities, authorisations and passport validity across the party.
• Quotes across several airlines. On cross-border routes both the fares and the taxes vary between carriers.
• One person holding the deadlines and chasing you before they pass.
• Someone to call when the list changes, which on a team or a reunion it always does.

Tell us the route, the dates and roughly how many are coming. Names and documents can follow. A travel expert answers at +1 (323) 800 6001, any hour, and nothing is reserved until you say so.