Sigh, I’ve just wasted a whole productive hour of my life this afternoon, and I need to vent it out. So, bear with me for a bit. Domestic Flight Cancellation Charges One of the advantages of the Flying Returns program is that at elite tiers, such as Gold and Maharajah Tiers, you get almost free domestic ticket cancellation/rebooking, as compared to the INR 1600-1900 which is the going price these days amongst Indian airlines. They charge you a modest INR 200, which also allows people like me to take a bet on fares long out and lock in some tickets subject to our schedules. Here is a snapshot of the benefits for Air India Gold Club: Now, the trouble seems…
Air India
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Air India offering free domestic tickets
Air India is running a promotion on their website, called, umm, the Get Lucky offer. This promotion offers every 100th ticket booked on Air India’s own website www.airindia.in, a complimentary domestic ticket, and the winners get notified at the end of their ticket booking process itself. The promotion runs between August 15, 2014 to September 30, 2014. The complimentary tickets are valid only after you travel at least one segment on your journey, if you booked an international ticket. If you booked a domestic ticket, it will be valid after you complete your entire journey. If you book a one-way ticket, you get a one-way ticket as your gift, and if you book a round trip, you get a round…
Flight Review: AI191 Mumbai–Newark, Air India, First Class
A friend and regular reader of the blog, Parag Mehta, recently took a First Class flight on Air India recently to travel between Mumbai and Newark, and I requested him for a Guest Post for the blog, since long haul Air India is not on my radar in the coming days. He came back flying Etihad First Class, booked on 9W miles, but try getting two trip reports from a busy investment professional You can read my review of EY F here. Over to you, Parag! I was planning a trip to New York for the longest time, and when the time came I looked at my pile of miles, and decided to try Air India and Etihad for the…
Why are Airlines of India lying about flying over Ukraine?
I’m still a little bit shocked at the way things played out last week in the air, and realising I won’t have a different point of view to offer, I restrained myself from pouring out on the tragedy that happened over the Ukrainian airspace last week. However, one of the things on my mind has been the reactions that have been made by other airlines to assuage their customers about the situation. Many an airlines went about clarifying that they did not fly over the Ukrainian airspace for a while, but lets stick to the situation closer home. The Government of India issued a statement a couple of days ago about India’s airlines not flying around Ukraine. In the same…
Air India offering double miles on the Delhi–Moscow flight
I recently wrote about the launch of Air India’s flight between Delhi and Moscow, which started operations from yesterday, on their Boeing 787 planes. Now, Air India is offering a double miles promotion on their frequent flyer program Flying Returns for those who choose to fly between India and Russia, for flying with them between July 18, 2014 to September 30, 2014. If you will be connecting from anywhere in India, you won’t get double miles for your intra-India flight, but on your India-Russia or vice versa route you should clock double miles. AI has not updated the mileage calculator on their website yet, but Delhi-Moscow should earn 2679 miles one way (base). Remember, Air India does not guarantee 100%…
Do you need to be an Air India Elite to get access to Star Alliance rewards?
Last week, I put out my first thoughts on the Air India Flying Returns’ program, after they joined in the Star Alliance. One of my first observations was that it is more expensive to burn on Star Alliance partners than to burn on Air India’s own metal for international travel. In the comments section, reader Krishnakumar makes a note: Just spoke to Flying Returns agent over the phone. He says that since I am Base Member of flying returns, I cannot redeem AI miles on Star alliance. You need to be Silver , gold or Maharaja member ! To which I was very surprised. However, today he came back reconfirming this statement: Dear AJ, I reconfirmed. FR told me that…
First look at Air India Star Alliance award chart
Air India has joined the Star Alliance today, culminating a seven-year long effort to get inside the world’s largest club of airlines. One of the things that also changes then, is the Flying Returns program, which will now offer earn and burn opportunities across the Star Alliance network of airlines. I had indicated earlier in this post about how will Air India elite members be mapped to Star Alliance tiers, and how will they be able to receive benefits today onwards. However, the new earning chart for Star Alliance carriers has just been released a while ago. Earning on Air India for Star Alliance member flights: While you can have a detailed look at the PDF, here are the broad…
Air India gets set for Star Alliance
The big day is still about 12-15 hours away, but Air India seems to be ready this time to join the Star Alliance. In 2011, they were jilted at the altar, and now Star Alliance and Air India have kissed and made up. Here are a couple of pictures of the Air India A320 VT-ESF, which is painted in the Star Alliance livery for tomorrow’s induction ceremony. At a later date, there will also be a Boeing 787 painted in the Star Alliance livery as well. Pictures courtesy OmniFlyers’ Facebook page. It seems at least two other airlines will fly their Star Alliance livery planes to India tomorrow, and there will be a star formation at Delhi Airport for the…
Air India Star Alliance ties begin to emerge
While I have not been on an Air India plane in about 40 days or more now, Air India is now about 4 days away from getting inducted into the Star Alliance, and first pictures have begin to emerge of how they are sporting the logo on their livery and around the airline. This looks real now, and official in 4 days I presume: This is a picture taken by OnePassenger and posted on FlyerTalk. Of course, I am looking forward to sighting the A320 and the B787 which will be painted and unveiled in the Star Alliance livery on July 11, 2014. Related Posts: How will the Indian flyer benefit with Air India joining Star Alliance Air India to…
Air India confirms benefits for elite members on joining Star Alliance
Air India has been working to get ready for the Star Alliance, and one of the common question I have been asked over the past few days was about the benefits that members will be able to get as Star Alliance elites. I had made a post last week about my expectation on what will be the benefits for AI flyers on joining the Star Alliance. One of the remarks was on the expected outcome of status equalisation with Star Alliance tiers. Here was what I wrote: Air India elites will now be Star Alliance Elites: Air India has 4 membership levels: Base, Silver, Gold and Platinum called Member, Silver Edge, Golden Edge and Maharajah Club. You cannot earn elite…
Air India set to fly to Moscow from July 18, 2014
Air India is on a roll these days expanding its international network, on the back of the 787s that are coming into their fleet. And I like it, purely because they are an international airline and need to be connecting to various countries to be able to be called on. Yes, they are losing money, but if they have a fighting chance to try their way back into being the preferred airline for Indians, they had to go international. After moving many of their loss-making routes to the 787s, they are now focussing on starting new ones. They recently launched flights to Italy, and are now going to launch flights to Russia again. This route was served long time ago,…
