I got asked this question the other day, so I thought I might investiate further:
As you may know, I have written about the WestJet Mastercard from Royal Bank of Canada before when it first came out and even back then I thought it was a great deal. I mean hello? Free flights from WestJet - just for using your mastercard when you buy stuff you were going to buy anyway. I think it’s a no brainer of a deal. I don’t know about you but I like flights. I like free flights even better (hello? Wesjet? are you listening?)
And I also like to get out of debt so one must be prudent when both applying for and using the WestJet Mastercard, or any other card for that matter: A credit card is only good if you use the card responsibly. let me repeat that again: use a credit card wisely – mastercard from westjet or any other brand doesn’t really matter and you’ll live a happy life full of free trips around the globe courtesy of Wesjet.
If you don’t use the Mastercard wisely and buy a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need you’ll regret it and all the free trips in the world won’t make up for the fact that you’re in debt.
Here’s my plan to use the WestJet Mastercard wisely:
1. Apply for the Westjet Mastercard.
2. Buy stuff with it. (My favorite part)
3. Pay off the mastercard when you get the bill (this part, I’m not so good at yet)
4. Enjoy your free westjet trip. I suggest a beach somewhere where others bring you little drinks with umbrellas, but you might prefer something else – maybe a trip to visit family I don’t know. But if you do steps 1 to 3 above, you can get free trips in Canada, the US and some tourist destinations too.
The kicker is you have to follow this debt freedom plan exactly. 1 and 2 aren’t too hard but study up on item 3 – the part about paying off your debts in full each month. This is the step that a lot of us seem to trip up on but the best part is if you keep on applying yourself to become debt free you can then run through these steps over and over again – as long as your budget allows – and get free trips.
Now the folks at Royal Bank aren’t stupid. They’ve teamed up with the folks at Westjet as they know a lot of you will be like me and carry a credit card balance. Once you start to carry a balance, you’re screwed. Your free trip isn’t free. You’re now paying interest on that trip and then you can kiss your free trip goodbye . And the folks at the Royal Bank will looooove you as you’re now paying interest for you supposedly free trip.
Don’t be dumb and when you buy anything with your WestJet MasterCard – pay it off at the end of the month. You’ll get free trip after free trip after free trip. and all you had to do was to use your credit card responsibly.
Is the WestJet Mastercard worth it? You bet. But you have to not keep a balance. If you do your trip is far from free..being in debt is the most expensive trip you could ever go on.
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