WestJet has weird condition in twitter contestThose that know me, or have heard me talk about my traveling adventures over the past decade know that I favour Air Canada for most of my flying, and although I have not flown WestJet except for one trip about 9 years ago if memory serves me correct, I don't really have anything against the airline specifically. Air Canada just has better schedule options for where I travel, and I have come to enjoy the benefits I get as being an Elite level Aeroplan member.

In fact I want WestJet and other airlines to thrive in order to create more competition, so that in the long run, Canadian travelers have cost-effective and convenient, safe travel options.

Air Canada Extends use of Upgrade CertificatesAir Canada is one of those company's that Canadians just love to hate, along with Canada Post, and phone companies such as Bell and MTS. I guess it all began back when these companies were crown corporations, they had a monopoly and really didn't need to excel in areas of Customer Service.

But recent changes at Air Canada have shown they are trying to change this legacy image. The latest news to come out of Air Canada, although not yet officially announced, is that for top-tier members of the Aeroplan frequent flyer program, they will be able to use North America Upgrade (NAU) certificates and System Wide Upgrade (SWU) certificates for flights booked in Tango Plus (T+) on North American routes from July 1st through September 7th, 2009.

Well, I just received an interesting email from a Rogers Communications team member, sent using the contact form on my website... It looks as though Rogers is in damage control mode, regarding the recent uproar that has occurred on blogs and social media services such as facebook and twitter. Pretty amazing that my blog was targeted for the contact a mere 8 minutes after the news broke on twitter.

Good for them for realizing their lack of news, and keeping everyone in the dark was doing nothing to help their image. Good for them for coming up with early upgrade incentives for their early adopters, and high monthly bill customers.

And good for them for engaging the people who are sharing news about their company and products whether good or bad. Is it too little too late?

The email I received follows:

Miranda MacDonald sent a message using the contact form at http://www.mythoughtsonthings.com/contact.

Hi Darren,

I saw your recent blog posts about Rogers and iPhone 3GS. I'm with the Rogers Communications team and we’ve just announced the details of special Hardware Upgrade savings for our existing iPhone customers and wanted to let you know.

There has been a lot of excitement around the new iPhone 3G S and we wanted to recognize the early adopters who helped make the iPhone the hottest-selling handset in Canadian wireless history. We will be discounting the price of the iPhone 3G S by between $250 and $500 to provide savings to many of our iPhone customers.