Rundown of Porter Airlines’ VIPorter (updated January 14, 2014)
Porter Airlines offers the VIPorter loyalty points program. They are known for excellent customer service, lounges and efficiency with their flights. This is probably one of the most straight up airline loyalty points program out there. The points are awarded as follows:
- Firm Class (one-way flight) = 375 points
- Flexible Class (one-way flight) = 750 points
- Freedom Class (one-way flight) = 1500 points
A one-way reward flight ticket costs 7,500 points and gives you a Flexible Fare Class ticket. The points only pays for the fare of the ticket, you are still responsible for the taxes and fees. Approximately 10% of Porter’s available seats are allocated for VIPorter redemption, so you might want to book your reward flight a little earlier.
It is as simple as that. Layover flights will not give you additional points. They don’t reward you points based on distance and you don’t redeem points based on distance. To make things even simpler, they do not even have any membership tiers. They have a one-shoe-fits-all type of program. The simplicity of the program and universal benefits is what is unique about the program. Everyone is treated equally and fairly.
There are however several major downsides to the program. Firstly, all points will expire 4 years from their earning date. They do not have any airline partners and no credit card affiliated product to help you earn points with alternative methods. We can’t expect too much from Porter because they are a very small company. You cannot transfer your points to another account, so you better have at least 7,500 points before the 4 year expiry. All these deficiencies make it hard to earn points quickly and hard to use the points, unless you fly Porter frequently.
Recommendations to Porter Airlines: For the most part, I like Porter’s fairness and simplicity. It makes the program so easy to understand. The main recommendation I have is with regards to the 4 years hard expiry policy. I would prefer that points never expire, instead, have members keep their accounts active once every 12 months, in line with Aeroplan.