Alaska Airlines & Porter Airlines Partnership: Full Mileage Earning Live

In late 2023, Alaska Airlines and Porter Airlines announced plans to collaborate. While the partnership was slow to get started, we recently saw full reciprocity introduced when it comes to earning miles. In this post, I want to take a look at what you can expect, and talk about the best way to go about booking (thanks to Isaac for flagging this).

Alaska & Porter now offer reciprocal mileage earning

Alaska Airlines and Porter Airlines have a partnership, intended to take advantage of Porter’s strong presence across Eastern Canada, and Alaska’s US West Coast links, to provide passengers more flight options between coasts.

In late 2023, this partnership initially kicked off as an interline agreement, so that passengers could purchase itineraries that include travel on both airlines through the Alaska or Porter websites, or through online travel agencies.

However, over time, we’ve seen this partnership improved, with more reciprocal mileage earning opportunities. At first we saw reciprocal mileage earning only when booking through the website of the airline you wanted to credit to, and now we’ve seen reciprocity rolled out regardless of which airline you book.

So it’s now possible to earn Alaska Mileage Plan miles for all Porter flights, regardless of whether you book through the websites of Alaska or Porter. You can also earn VIPorter rewards for all Alaska flights, though I think the Mileage Plan angle is probably more interesting.

For those looking to earn Mileage Plan miles, the earnings rates differ based on whether you book through Alaska’s website or Porter’s website. Below is the mileage earning chart for partner flights booked through the Alaska site (PorterClassic fares earn 100% elite qualifying miles, while PorterReserve fares earn 150% elite qualifying miles).

Below is the mileage earning chart for partner flights booked through partner sites (PorterClassic fares earn 50% elite qualifying miles, while PorterReserve fares earn 100% elite qualifying miles).

The catch is that in almost all cases, Porter flights are more expensive when booking through Alaska than when booking through Porter. For example, taking a one-way Miami to Toronto flight, you’d pay $135 for PorterClassic and $269 for PorterReserve if booking through Porter’s website.

Meanwhile you’d pay $162 for PorterClassic and $302 for PorterReserve if booking through Alaska’s website.

What’s the reason for this? Well, Porter only sells some fares directly, like it’s more “basic” fares, so you have to book a more expensive fare bundle through Alaska.

There are some advantages to booking through Alaska. Obviously you’d get better mileage earning. On top of that, you could use Alaska Wallet funds to pay for a Porter flight when booking that way. Similarly, if you needed to cancel, you could get Alaska Wallet funds for the cancelation. So for some people, booking through Alaska might be worth it, even if it’s more expensive.

We were also supposed to see Alaska Mileage Plan redemptions on Porter go live as of late 2024, though that hasn’t yet happened. Hopefully that changes soon. The two airlines are also reportedly exploring closer cooperation in other areas, like with elite reciprocity.

For context, Porter has historically operated De Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprops out of Toronto Billy Bishop Airport, though has lately taken on a new strategy, as the airline is now competing across North America out of Toronto Pearson Airport, thanks to new Embraer E195-E2s. Porter has launched flights across the United States, including to Alaska gateways like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

My take on the Alaska & Porter partnership

I’m thrilled to see this partnership, mainly because Porter now partners with a major frequent flyer program. I’ve been curious to fly with Porter, but Porter hasn’t had any major airline partners prior to Alaska. That’s awesome, and a huge value-add.

That being said, in terms of commercial cooperation, I’d say this partnership is better than nothing, but not exactly a match made in heaven. When you look at the Canadian airline industry, Air Canada belongs to Star Alliance (and partners with United), and WestJet partners with Delta, and that doesn’t leave a whole lot for Alaska, American, and the oneworld alliance.

As Porter continues to grow, personally I wouldn’t be surprised to see the airline eventually either join the oneworld alliance, or cooperate more closely with American as well. I feel like this might be the first step in that direction.

Bottom line

In late 2023, Alaska Airlines and Porter Airlines launched a partnership. Initially this just consisted of an interline agreement, though we’ve increasingly seen reciprocity rolled out for mileage earning. You can now earn miles whether booking through Alaska or Porter.

We should also eventually see reciprocal mileage redemptions, and possibly even some level of elite reciprocity. Given that Air Canada and WestJet already have partnerships with major US airlines, and also given the pace at which Porter is growing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first step toward closer oneworld cooperation.

What do you make of the Alaska & Porter partnership?