The new Porter Airlines option to redeem VIPorter points for flights on Air Transat represents a new advantage for the program over several other popular reward programs used by Canadians. And what is that advantage? It comes down to surcharges and how these are passed along or not passed along to the customer, and Porter Airlines falls into the latter as they do not pass along Other ATC surcharges to the customer.
Some of Canada’s most popular rewards programs have proven to be not the greatest options for travel to the United Kingdom and Europe. Areas which just happen to be extremely large markets for Air Transat. The reason they are not great options is due to the way most airlines breakdown their airfare for Transatlantic flights. Typically airlines shave a low base fare coupled with a high surcharge in addition to all the standard fees and taxes.
As such, the most valuable redemption options in programs like RBC Avion Rewards, AIR MILES, CIBC Aventura Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards (Fixed points for travel only with Amex) and others fail as they can only be used for base airfares. It’s this reason that we have a whole loyalty lesson dedicated to this subject matter! But not so with Porter’s VIPorter program
Recommended reading: Loyalty Lesson – Why credit card reward charts rarely provide good value for economy class flights to Europe
Why VIPorter represents a good option
The good news with Porter Airlines VIPorter’s new redemption option to use points on Air Transat is that they have chosen to include the “Other ATC” fees as part of the base fare when redeeming points. The only part of the fare that requires payment with cash is for government taxes and fees. This follows in the footsteps of Air Canada Aeroplan who also do not pass along airline surcharges to their members who redeem points for flights.
Let’s take a look at how this advantage plays out for Porter Airlines VIPorter.
Toronto to London Gatwick (Booked with VIPorter Points)
Here we have a round trip economy class fare for June 16 – 23 booked via Porter Airlines and using VIPorter points.
It should be noted that Porter’s Economy Standard fare includes the ability to make flight changes (for a fee) where the examples from other programs do not.
Toronto to London Gatwick (Booked with RBC Avion Rewards Points)
Here we have a round trip Economy Class Standard fare for June 16 – 23 booked via Avion Rewards and trying but unable to use Avion Rewards points
Taking away the fact there is some sort of disconnect in Avion Rewards stating I need at least 1,000 points even though my balance right above that warning clearly shows over 1,000 points – you can see here the base fare for this is $19. If you have one of the Avion Visa cards you would have the option to redeem 65,000 points for that $19 (It would actually be a little bit higher as RBC does shift a very small amount of fees over to the base fare when redeeming) and then you can pay the remainder of fees and taxes with cash or points at a rate of 100 points to $1.
Toronto to London Gatwick (Booked with AIR MILES miles)
Here we have the same round trip economy class fare for June 16 – 23 booked via AIR MILES and using AIR MILES Reward Miles:
As AIR MILES only allows you to redeem miles to the base fare you could redeem a maximum of 190 miles for this flight to cover the $19 base fare and then you have to pay the remaining $880.74 with a credit card. There is no option to use miles towards this additional amount.
How VIPorter represents a good points option for Air Transat flights
In our post Introducing the BMO VIPorter Mastercard and BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard I mentioned more than once that the new BMO VIPorter cards are the ideal cards for Air Transat travellers and the no passing along of the surcharges is one reasons why.
With the Porter redemption example above you need 50,000 points plus you would need to pay $277.71 in taxes and fees. You could earn that 50,000 points with $16,667.67 in Porter flight purchases (3 points per dollar) made on the BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard. The card also earns 2 points per dollar on gas, transportation, groceries, dining, and hotels which would only require $25,000 in spending but that will take over a year to achieve as the annual spending caps across those categories come in at $20,000*.
* This shows an inherent weakness in the VIPorter cards due to those annual spending caps but even with those they still can be a better option for Air Transat than RBC, CIBC, AIR MILES etc.
If we look at RBC and their RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card you’re going to need a lot more spending to get anywhere near the same value as the Porter credit card for flights on Air Transat. First lets put it out there – there is absolutely no point in redeeming 65,000 points for $19 and then paying $880 for the taxes and fees. Thus for RBC cardholders it would be better suited to use the any travel redemption option of 100 points to $1. This means you would need 89,973 Avion points to redeem for this flight. That represents $71,798 to $89,973 in spending on any of the RBC Avion Cards!
Even if you have an RBC Avion plus RBC ION+ card combo (Learn more about this trick in our Loyalty Lesson: How to extract more value from Avion Rewards) you would need to spend a minimum of $29,991. I’ll take spending $25,000 on the VIPorter Card (at 2 points/$) plus $277.71 for $25,277.71 in total outlay to get that flight versus spending anywhere from $29,999 to $89,973 with Avion Rewards.
And if we look at AIR MILES there’s really no point to even bother trying. Yes, with AIR MILES you aren’t “losing” any value in the miles you redeem since you are only redeeming 190 miles for the $19 base fare but really what’s the point of a loyalty program in this case when you have to pay so much in taxes and fees.
Recommended reading: Use fewer AIR MILES Dream Miles for Air Transat flights to the U.K. – Why even bother?
There are better options however….
There are other options that can provide ever better value for Air Transat flyers than using Porter Airlines VIPorter and that is for those using one of the Points Earning Machines Cards which are the American Express Cobalt Card, MBNA Rewards World Elite Mastercard, Scotiabank Gold American Express Card and to a lesser extent the National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard.
The big earn rates of 5 to 6 points per dollar in very popular everyday spending categories on the Points Earning Machines means you could get the same Air Transat flights for well under $20,000 in spending. Actually, even under $15,000 if it’s all 6x point earning on the Scotiabank Gold American Express Card.
Of course, this does not take into account additional VIPorter points being earned by those flying with Porter Airlines. So those who are more frequent flyers with Porter who have the BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard should end up seeing value that would end up being close to what these other credit cards can provide.
Wrapping it up
The new option to be able to redeem Porter Airlines VIPorter points for flights on Air Transat is one that Air Transat flyers should take note of. The combination of this new reward option combined with the new BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard moves VIPorter up to being one of the better programs for flying with Air Transat. It may not be the best, but it definitely surpasses the very popular RBC Avion Rewards, CIBC Aventura Rewards and AIR MILES for Transatlantic flights on the Montreal based leisure carrier.
Images via Porter Airlines, Air Transat, RBC, & AIR MILES