The Air India / Vistara merger will mean that Vistara will be subsumed into Air India, and the Vistara loyalty programme will be transitioned to Air India. Here is a quick recap of what we know about the loyalty programme merger.

Tier Status will be retained or upgraded.

Vistara assures that the tier status will be assigned based on the cumulative points in both programs. Vistara status that the members have on the date of the merger will be maintained at the minimum, or if an upgrade is applicable, then that upgraded tier will be handed out to the member (based on the combined activity in both programmes). As a reminder, Club Vistara only considers your money spent, while Air India takes flight count or money spent to grant status.

Points to be rolled over 1:1 to Flying Returns

On the migration day, CV Points balance and the Tier Points available will be transferred to Flying Returns programme at a 1:1 ratio. The points will remain valid for at least one year from the date of migration, even if they are due to expire sooner.

Free Flight Vouchers and Upgrades

Club Vistara issues upgrade vouchers as part of the programme, and complimentary flight ticket codes for those who subscribe to their co-brand credit cards will be transferred to Flying Returns.

Link Your Club Vistara and Air India Flying Returns accounts.

Air Vistara has kicked off the process of linking your Air India and Vistara frequent flyer accounts today. The airline only needs you to link the two accounts so that when the merger date arrives, they can club the accounts. This is more of a preemptive step at this time.

To link your accounts, you need to log into your Club Vistara account, go to the sidebar, head to “Link Accounts,” add your 9-digit Flying Returns membership number, and click on submit.

As you can note, the following fields need to match for you to be able to connect the two accounts successfully.

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email Address
• Phone Number (not applicable for minor accounts)
• Date of Birth

If there is an error, it is instantly popped and the linking does not go through. For instance, in my case, the email address was different.

Since the email address on the Air India account was locked, I instead changed it on my Club Vistara account, and then the “linking” was complete.

If you are not already an Air India Flying Returns member, you can sign up for a Flying Returns account, and link them. Or else, on the (yet unknown) date of merger, Vistara and Air India will merger the accounts if all the information matches across an AI and a UK account. If such an account does not exist, then a new Flying Returns account will be created and your CV Points, Tier Points and Vouchers will be transferred there.

Remember, there is no deadline to this activity at this point in time. So you don’t have to do it immediately, and I am sure, more reminders would be coming your way if you don’t complete this activity soon.

Bottomline

Air India and Vistara’s loyalty programmes are supposed to be merged in the coming months. Vistara now wants you to let them in on your Air India Flying Returns acccount, so that when the time is right, they will merge the two accounts.

What do you think of the merger process of Club Vistara and Flying Returns?

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