Intent for <activity-alias> fails with ActivityNotFoundException

I wrote an activity-alias for an Activity:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.company.htmlapp">

    <application
        android:name=".AppController">

        <activity
            android:name=".main.MainActivity" />

       <activity-alias
           android:name=".main.MainActivityAlias"
           android:targetActivity=".main.MainActivity">
    </application>

</manifest>

Following this answer, I'm trying to start that activity-alias:

void goToMainActivity(String server) {
    Intent i;
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
        i = new Intent();
        String activityPackage = MainActivity.class.getPackage().getName();
        ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName(activityPackage, ".MainActivityAlias");
        i.setComponent(componentName);
    } else {
        i = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
    }

    i.putExtra( ... );
    startActivity(i);
}

The resulting name from MainActivity.class.getPackage().getName() is com. company.htmlapp.main.

But it fails in line startActivity(i) with ActivityNotFoundException:

android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find explicit activity class 
   {com.company.htmlapp.main/.MainActivityAlias}; have you declared this 
   activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?

Edit:

Tried with ComponentName(activityPackage, ".main.MainActivityAlias"); resulting error is the same with different package:

android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find 
    explicit activity class {com.company.htmlapp.main/.main.MainActivityAlias}; 
    have you declared this activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?

For an <activity-alias> declared like this:

<activity-alias
  android:name=".main.MainActivityAlias"
  android:targetActivity=".main.MainActivity">

The ComponentName can be created like this:

ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName("com.company.htmlapp", "com.company.htmlapp.main.MainActivityAlias");

In my case I could also do it dynamically:

    try {
        PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
        PackageInfo packageInfo = pm.getPackageInfo(this.getPackageName(), 0);

        ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName(packageInfo.packageName,
                MainActivity.class.getPackage().getName() + ".MainActivityAlias");
        i.setComponent(componentName);
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }