Alaska Airlines and Contour Airlines have quietly launched a partnership, offering mileage earning opportunities. More airline partnerships are always a good thing, though I can’t help but think that this seems kind of random.
In this post:
Earn Alaska miles for Contour Airlines flights
It’s now possible to earn Alaska Mileage Plan miles for flights on Contour Airlines. The catch is that you can only earn Mileage Plan miles for Contour Airlines flights if you book directly through Alaska (meaning your ticket number starts with “027”). As you can see below, you earn 100% redeemable and elite qualifying miles for tickets booked in the M, B, Q, N, and Y, fare classes.
Alaska Airlines states that select Contour Airlines flights are bookable through Alaska’s website and app, and I’m finding that to be the case. To be clear, you can book nonstop flights wholly on Contour Airlines through Alaska’s site, so you don’t need a ticket that includes travel on multiple airlines.
Now, Contour Airlines routes aren’t exactly complementary to Alaska’s network, as the airline doesn’t even fly to the West Coast.
Note that it’s only possible to earn miles for Contour Airlines flights, so you can’t redeem Mileage Plan miles for Contour Airlines.
So I’m not sure I totally understand the basis of this relationship. Is it just intended to give Mileage Plan members an opportunity to be rewarded on even more airlines? Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to see more options to earn Mileage Plan miles, and this is probably how I’d try to book a Contour Airlines ticket. It just seems… random.
What is Contour Airlines, anyway?
For those not familiar with Contour Airlines, this is a scheduled public charter operator (for regulatory purposes, in order to be a Part 135 operator), much like JSX. That means that Contour Airlines sells tickets, and then flights are actually operated by Contour Aviation, technically a separate entity.
Contour Airlines sells tickets on a fleet of nearly two dozen regional jets, primarily Embraer ERJ 135s, 140s, and 145s. Each is equipped with just 30 seats, so it’s not at all a dense layout. That layout is intentional, since that’s the seat cap for a public charter operator.
By being classified as a Part 135 operator, the airline isn’t subjected to the same TSA security requirements, doesn’t need to hire pilots with at least 1,500 hours, etc.
Contour Airlines largely sells tickets in Essential Air Service (EAS) markets, which is why many of the carrier’s routes may leave the average person scratching their heads. If you want to fly to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Owensboro, Kentucky, or or Kirksville, Missouri, Contour Airlines is your carrier.
So the airline largely has attractive fares and comfortable planes, and the economics of that work because the government is pitching in for most of the carrier’s services.
Bottom line
Alaska Airlines and Contour Airlines have launched a partnership. With this, Mileage Plan members can earn miles for Contour Airlines flights, as long as they book their ticket with Alaska. This is probably now the best way to be rewarded for Contour Airlines flights, so I’m happy to see this partnership. However, I don’t see the networks of the two airlines as being particularly complementary.
What do you make of the new Alaska Airlines and Contour Airlines partnership?
While Contour is subject to less strict TSA rules, they still use gates at the airports they fly into from EAS cities (PHX, CLT, ORD) that are sterile, so they still have full screening.
In fact, Contour is part of PreChek.
I booked round trip Business Class flight going from Anchorage to Amsterdam via Frankfurt Is there any way I get that mileage on my Alaska Airlines account?
SkyWest owns 25% of Contour so Nathan could be why
There must be some interesting things going on a Contour has their ticketing and baggage check infrastructure, while Skywest used that of the airline they are codesharing with on a given flight.
That must be expensive for Contour to maintain.
Does Contour provide any inflight service (drinks & snacks)?
Non-alchoholic.
It’s frustrating how AA trip credit won’t work on contour but AA would happily selling tickets involved contour and AA flights. Also no award options on coutour airlines. It’s always almost empty on my contour flights and def a waste of money by government but it’s peanut money for Uncle Sam. Probably 2-3 million a year and nice option for people who live in rural area like I do.
Contour seems to be expanding and they do serve some routes into major hubs like ORD so I think it's not a bad partnership. If bookable on Alaska or AA in some cases why can I never seem to find award flights on those routes, yet? I keep trying.
It's also an interesting booking backroom setup I'd imagine. So Alaska is buying those tickets you book (making a profit) I assume so is the...
Contour seems to be expanding and they do serve some routes into major hubs like ORD so I think it's not a bad partnership. If bookable on Alaska or AA in some cases why can I never seem to find award flights on those routes, yet? I keep trying.
It's also an interesting booking backroom setup I'd imagine. So Alaska is buying those tickets you book (making a profit) I assume so is the price higher than just booking on Contour? and is that profit more than the value of the Alaska miles you'd earn by booking through Alaska instead? In addition, Alaska then purchases the ticket from Contour who pays for the charter aircraft, and the public foots part of the bill as an EAS route.
As a consumer that is somewhat near a Contour airport what I really want is a way to redeem Alaska or AA miles on Contour as a positioning flight to a long haul award to Europe or Asia. I have yet to be able to make that work. Imagine parking for free at one of these small airports near your home and jetting off to Paris instead of driving hours to a larger airport, paying a fortune to park, and maybe even having to stay the night prior.
I wish Contour would institute mileage earning with its interline partner, AA.