I'm thinking about switching much of my travel (mainly transborder) from Star (AC/UA) to WestJet.

One thing I was curious about is the organization of fares on WestJet.com - it seems as though there are 'Regular' fares, as well as 'Sale' fares (marked by a dollar-sign). Are there any other fare types that WestJet.com offers? I'm simply trying to gauge any sort of fare differences between Air Canada's fare products (Tango, Latitude, etc), and how things break down.

Any and all details are appreciated!

The AC fares offer different perks depending on the fare-type. (advance seat selection, lounge access, status miles etc). whereas the Westjet fares don't. A cheaper WS fare is just a seat sale as far as I can tell. I'm sure if you phone them, they'll sell you a higher fare than what their website shows, but you won't get anything more for it LOL. I beleive WS allows advance seat selection with online check-in starting 24 hours before the flight.

I beleive WS allows advance seat selection with online check-in starting 24 hours before the flight.
Correct, and you'll have pretty much the whole plane to choose from (I think exit rows are reserved for airport, and someone said they block-assign large groups in advance). There's pretty much no chance you'll find only middle seats available at 23h59.

=aw

WestJet's fares are based on a first-come-first-bought basis. As the lowest fare class is sold out, then next one opens up. There is no real equivilent to AC's T, T+, L, L+ since every seat on WS comes with the same service featrues. If a flight is not selling well, WS will offer a further discount to the lowest fare to attract people to that flight to start to fill it to break even.

As for advance seating, AW is correct. I doubt more than a handful of WS travellers bother to do online seat selection with the 24-hour window, so you are pretty likely to get an aisle or window of your choice at 23h59m...though the emergency exit rows are assigned at check-in only, and I believe by an agent so they can determine if you are physically appropriate for those seats.

If you are switching to WS, you might consider getting a BMO WestJet AIRMILES Mastercard, though not sure how easy it is for non-Canadian residents to acquire one. You'll accumulate Air Miles when booking online, for each $15 or $20 spent, plus some of the new perks WS is likely to introduce in the new year when they've got the new res system going. (You'll also need to register for an AIR MILES card separate from the credit card.) This program acts as WS's proxy FF program.

I'm thinking about switching much of my travel (mainly transborder) from Star (AC/UA) to WestJet.

One thing I was curious about is the organization of fares on WestJet.com - it seems as though there are 'Regular' fares, as well as 'Sale' fares (marked by a dollar-sign). Are there any other fare types that WestJet.com offers? I'm simply trying to gauge any sort of fare differences between Air Canada's fare products (Tango, Latitude, etc), and how things break down.

Any and all details are appreciated!

What you are seeing is a hold over from Westjet's legacy Reservation Management System (RMS). The legacy system was replaced in December 2004 to January 2005 timframe. From inception through to end of 2004 Westjet ran a RMS that was very simplistic. In the simplistic system sale fares were could only come from certain fare class (NOT fare basis but actual classes). This methodology transferred over to their web development scheme which took the fare classes and added the appropriate graphic. In 2005 Westjet converted over to the Sabre RMS system. The more sophysticated system does not differentiate between fare classes and uses a fare basis approach. However the webdevelopment system and certain business rules/operations were never modified to reflect the Sabre RMS environment. Therefore it is possible for one flight to display Sale fare while a second flight does not display a sale fare; all the while both flights sell for the same price point.