Hi Friends,

My relative is going to India in the second week of June (e.g. 10-14th June). She is looking to buy a one way ticket or a round trip, depending on the fares, in economy class. She will depart from JFK/EWR/LGA.

She currently is accumulating miles on Northwest, thus would like to fly on an airline which will allow her to accumulate miles on NW. Could you please help me with:

a)Locating any good deals from any NYC airport to Bombay-India.

b)Any travel agents/consolidators/websites which can help us book a good fare. We are located in New York City.

c)Any good RTW/Business class fares?

Currently the NWA website is pulling up a one way fare of approx $900 one way in economy. Are there any better deals one way/round trip in economy or any great deals in business class or companion schemes?.

Northwest or the partner airlines are preffered but any deals will be much appreciated. In exchange we can offer our goodwill, and a souveneir from India to the person with the best deal! or 2-3 people with the best deals!!

Thank You, and Best Regards,
AK

If you can work your way around getting miles, AA has NYC-DEL/BOM for 55K miles on CX.

20K/20 Partner bonus would help a lot.

to quickly answer your questions:

a)Locating any good deals from any NYC airport to Bombay-India.

cheapest deals from NYC area to India will be on AI (Air India), Delta, Kuwait Airways, Gulf Air, or NW/KL. Gulf Air will be a codeshare with AA or some other upto LHR. In order to get these cheap fares you will need to go to a consolidator. Cheaper fares are available on airlines such as Aeroflot, Uzbekistan, Egyptair, etc.

b)Any travel agents/consolidators/websites which can help us book a good fare. We are located in New York City.

Tons of consiolidators in NYC. Try the Indian agents as they will have the best fares. One that comes to mind are Explorer Travels in the Empire State Bldg.. I can get the number if you cant find it.

c)Any good RTW/Business class fares?

NW/KL have a good fare with EK,UK,CX,KQ, and others. its mileage based with backtracking allowed upto a maximum of 23K - 28K miles depending on fare. If you call up NW they will give you the details.

consolidator fares on NW/KL (which allow mileage accrual but not upgrades with miles although they are genrally issued on NW ticket stock) are pretty decent with low season fares as little as $900 RT and peak season upto $1450 RT. If you look hard enough and are flexible on dates you should not pay more than $1250 RT at any time.

A good unfiltered source of travel agents specializing in consolidator fares and ethnic markets is ethnic newspapers/magazines. India Abroad, News India Times, India West, India Currents are examples of ethnic newspapers/magazines with a lot of ads. Some of these have an ombudsman (India Abroad?) but with most of the ads it is "buyer beware". Check with friends that give strong referrals. Some local newspapers have travel agent ads too that specialize in Asia/India.

There are far too many fly-by-night operators and cheats. Even those in business for years can be bad business people. Fork up the credit card surcharge (1% to 3% for AMEX) and at least protect yourself with a credit card (hoping that it won't now become CC fraud). Check the confirmed reservation with the airline and make sure that you have valid ticket stock if it is a paper ticket.

I remember that there was a link posted in one of the FT boards of travel agency lists with ratings/user reviews. See if you can locate it with a search or try Google/Altavista or whatever your favorite search engine may be.

If you found some good choices share it with us here and let us know.