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.
Continue reading: Alaska Airlines & Contour Airlines Launch Partnership
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I wish Contour would institute mileage earning with its interline partner, AA.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Though not mentioned, if booked via AS website, the Contour flights credit as though they are Alaska flights. Unfortunately, building an itinerary with AS or AA segments doesn’t seem possible. I had to book AA (SNA-PHX) then Contour on Alaska site (PHX-SHO). I’ll receive MP miles based off of minimum segment earnings. SNA-PHX-SHO on AS AA, or Contour as a full itinerary = impossible.