One of the better features of Air India Flying Returns frequent flyer program has to be the ability to resurrect expired miles. You need to pay a fee for that, but if you see the benefit when you need miles and you don’t have them ready. Air India Flying Returns miles expire at the end of the month, 3 years after they have been credited to your account.

Now, earlier it was very cumbersome to renew these miles. You had to go to a counter to pay up the amount to renew the miles. And you could walk into the past of Air India, like it happened with me. However, it just costed INR 0.10 to renew miles at that point of time. So worth the visit.

Now, Air India charges INR 0.60 per mile to be renewed. This has been the case since 2015 when they revamped the program. However, it was still necessary for you to go to an office, spend an hour or a half to pay for the miles and get them to toggle the switch for you.

It turns out, now Air India can renew your AI miles over the phone. You need to call from your registered mobile number only. Only miles that expired between 2006 and 2016 can be renewed, and you can pay via a credit card. Your account should be KYC confirmed to be able to make this process happen. These miles would be valid through March 2018 if you renewed today.

Here is the process, illustrated.

Of course, you can also buy Air India miles at INR 1.25 per mile.

Bottomline

I am mighty impressed that Air India has made the process of reinstating these miles much easier. Now only if they could give us the same non-friction process in other areas such as redemptions on Star Alliance being made online.