When it comes to offering points purchases, the rest of the world seems to do far better than their Indian brethren in terms of loyalty programmes. Jet Airways had aced the mileage programmes of India with JetPrivilege and used to also offer frequent sales on miles sold. With Club Vistara, we are seeing one of the first sales on points, with a bonus.
Vistara offering up to a 40% Bonus on purchased points
Vistara only recently started to offer points on sale, and they usually offer points on sale for INR 1.25 per point plus GST, making it a landed cost of INR 1.48 per Club Vistara point on offer. However, they are offering up to 40% bonus points on the purchase of points through May 16, 2022, only.
Vistara ordinarily allows the purchase of up to 5,00,000 points per annum in an account, but in this case, the promotion requires you to purchase a minimum of 3,000 points and a maximum of 20,000 points on which the bonus would be applied. The bonus is a tiered bonus, and works as follows:
- Purchase between 3,000-5,000, and get a 10% bonus (INR 1.34 per point inclusive of GST)
- Purchase between 6,000-7,000, and get a 20% bonus (INR 1.23 per point inclusive of GST)
- Purchase between 8,000-9,000, and get a 30% bonus (INR 1.14 per point inclusive of GST)
- Purchase over 10,000, and get a 40% bonus ((INR 1.05 per point inclusive of GST)
You do need to register prior to buying the points to be eligible for the bonus offer. The CV points arrive in your account within 48 hours, but the bonus will arrive in your account by May 31, 2022.
Also, new accounts are going to be unable to use this promotion, until they have 500 CV points in their account. Bonus CV points can be claimed only once during the offer period per CV ID by Club Vistara members holding a minimum of 500 CV Points in their account.
As you would see, the promotion makes mild sense at the top end when the price goes close to INR 1 per point. With travel picking up, Vistara hardly has any availability in the premium cabins for redemptions, which is understandable, so if you want to redeem tickets after buying points with this promotion, you are better off first checking availability and then buying. Also, do the maths to ensure that you come out ahead with redemptions in this promotion.
Bottomline
Vistara is offering a promotional bonus of up to 40% points when you buy CV points in a new promotion valid through May 16, 2022. At the top end, the promotion brings your point’s purchase price down to INR 1.05 per point purchased. However, the maximum bonus you will make is 8,000 points, as the promotion caps at 20,000 points purchase during the promotional period.
What do you make of Vistara’s points purchase promotion?
Liked our articles and our efforts? Please pay an amount you are comfortable with; an amount you believe is the fair price for the content you have consumed. Please enter an amount in the box below and click on the button to pay; you can use Netbanking, Debit/Credit Cards, UPI, QR codes, or any Wallet to pay. Every contribution helps cover the cost of the content generated for your benefit.
(Important: to receive confirmation and details of your transaction, please enter a valid email address in the pop-up form that will appear after you click the ‘Pay Now’ button. For international transactions, use Paypal to process the transaction.)
We are not putting our articles behind any paywall where you are asked to pay before you read an article. We are asking you to pay after you have read the article if you are satisfied with the quality and our efforts.
Do you get flight credit against Tier Renewal, if booked using CV points? i.e., against the 40 flights I need to retain Plat this year?
@Ashwin, of course not!
Would purchasing points via Axis Club Vistara Infinite Card make the deal better?
@Rahul G, no
Hi Ajay,
Wonderful to see many informative posts from you.
On this vistara offer, however, I’m unable to understand the math. I just checked for a roundtrip ticket from DEL to SIN for September this year. By cash, on premium economy the seat is rupees 31k and it’s 21k for economy value. Through CV points for a premium economy its 80k points+taxes and for the economy its 44k points+4k rupees on taxes.
Now, there is a markup of 158% (rupees to CV) for the premium economy and 109% for the economy.
My point is, how is this points purchase offer lucrative? Does it not make sense to buy the ticket by cash outright than route it through CV points (specific to this offer)?
It’s exactly for this same reason I gave a miss to the earlier vistara cv points transfer offer. I thought that the markup (cash to CV) is much higher than the 40% bonus offer in both offer cases (points transfer and points purchase). Have I overlooked something here?
They offer 25% CV points discount sometimes. That’s where CV points become worth it for economy.
Yeah but still won’t be able to tide over the markup. As pointed out by JJ, maybe it would make sense to use it for specific domestic sectors (busy routes).
International vistara flights are not good for cv redemption. try something on the domestic sector.
Eg- Delhi – Hyderabad economy ticket is available at 5000 cv points and the flight is minimum 6k+ if bought in cash.
Makes sense now. Thank you for the heads-up.
Vistara CV points purchase is the least lucrative in terms of redemption for international flights.
A Vistara Economy Delhi-Paris on cash is approx INR 30,000 – one way (for June 2022)
If you buy 20,000 CV points(+8,000 bonus) you pay INR 29500. You get 28,000 points. Yet, you require 2,000 points + INR 1,000-2,000(Taxes on redemption flight).
Usually this sector is around INR 22,000 if you book in advance.
Now, why will someone go through so much hassle given the fact there is a capping at 20,000 points. (Quite silly imo)
Vistara points redemption with bonus 40% is a hoax offer for international redemptions.
Domestic redemptions are still better via this as Del- Mum flight can rake up to x3 the price when booking on cash.
Its only good if you’re falling short on some points for an upcoming trip and were going to make a CV purchase anyways.