Airline status is always a good thing, given it comes handy in a tricky situation. As of the moment, I have Jet Airways’ Platinum status, and also Gold status with Vistara and Air India, the other two full service carriers in India. Most of it comes from the travel I do, but some comes quicker.

In case you have been wondering about your options, Vistara has been offering an opportunity to become Vistara Platinum with minimum effort. Vistara’s Platinum tier was launched just last August, and comes with the following benefits:

• 11 Points/INR 100 spent
• No Rescheduling Fees on flights
• Meet & Greet
• Business Class Check-in / Priority Baggage Handling
• 15 Kg extra baggage allowance
• 5 Upgrade vouchers / 4 Lounge Access Vouchers
• Lounge Access

Now, Vistara has been running a campaign to get more people to switch business to them, and as a part of that, they’d be willing to offer Vistara Platinum as well. To be eligible to get Vistara Platinum, you need to be an existing Elite with another airline (Gold or Platinum tier).

You go across to this Club Vistara website and submit your details along with a copy of your other airlines’ membership card to be uploaded.Within a few hours, you should hear back from Vistara about your account being upgraded to a Gold Tier. This new tier is valid for a period of 3 months. From here on, you can make your way to Vistara Platinum by taking 12 Vistara flights or earning 9000 Tier Points. This gets you Vistara Platinum which usually comes to those who get 40 flights with them.

If you don’t have so much business and happy to stick to Gold Tier, you just take 6 flights and become Gold with them. If you don’t do anything, you would still get Silver status for a period of 12 months, which entitles you to the following:

• 9 CV Points
• Premium Economy Check-in
• 5 KG excess baggage allowance
• 1 Upgrade Voucher
• 1 Lounge Access Voucher

Not bad for doing nothing, eh?

Why is Club Vistara being so generous?

By making this promotion, they are hoping the regular fliers such as the Consultants and the Entrepreneurs will switch to Vistara and stay with them once they become an elite. The benefits anyways accrue to you as a flier once you fly them, and not if you just hoard status and keep with it.

Bottomline

The Vistara promotion is a good one and I’m personally trying to figure out if I should go for Platinum or stick with Gold. I’d love to have Platinum with them, but for the part that they only fly to Delhi for me and are out of my consideration set for other sectors.

Are you going to go for Club Vistara’s Complimentary Status Match and make use of this?