For some reason I have not been able to figure out free tickets to India from the US are more expensive than those to South East Asia. For example, UA will fly you from JFK to HKG for 60K (9487 miles one way) but will fly you from JFK-DEL (7716 miles) for 80K (starting next April). BA is even worse, they do not award miles for discount economy tickets from LHR to India. Why is this so?

Is it just a question of supply and demand? BTW, discount, bulk fares from SFO to DEL are hitting $1700 after tax during the peak travel time between 12/10 and 12/25 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif
(www.4lowfares.com)

Or is it that the no airline is offering a competive reward structure and hence nobody is matching??

Often there is no rationale for why FF program rules are the way they are.

I think that miles needed to FF-Asia were based on the gateways from the West Coast, where the average distance to FF-Asia is smaller than the average distance to India. Also many US carriers do not fly to India, so they rely on their partners. Currently the miles needed on United to go to India from the US is much more than what it used to be when they flew to India. Also note that United has quietly raised the mileage needed to go to India from US on business class (I guess this increase will take place when they resume service to India).

Good luck getting a FF ticket to India during peak periods.

BA does award miles on LHR-BOM (or DEL, MAA, etc.) on AA and other OneWorld carriers. I fly mostly business but did economy a few times with my son and got mileage + bonus (PLAT/EP). Only specific fare codes do not accrue miles - mainly on BA Exec Club programs.

Also they treat traveller with addresses in India differently (more liberal in awarding miles). Consolidator and deep discount fares are an exception.

Originally posted by enjoystravel:
Only specific fare codes do not accrue miles - mainly on BA Exec Club programs.

Also they treat traveller with addresses in India differently (more liberal in awarding miles). Consolidator and deep discount fares are an exception.

At $1500-1800+ RT I wonder if it is fair for BA to not award miles for US-India travel. These are the fares for December travel from the deep-discount consolidators!! Keep in mind that US-Europe tickets sell for one-third of that price and still earn miles though the distance is often 60-65% of total flight (depending on where you start and where you connect in Europe). Incidentally NW, UA (when they flew) and DL provide full milage on these trips, regarless of the fare-class, so this discrimination is specific to BA.

SJC2ISP,

I have been gaining more insights into this. India has not moved aggressively towards an openskies model (SIN, KUL, TPE, AMS, etc.) This means most of the rights of foreign carriers to fly to India are based on bilateral treaties. To protect the value of AirIndia (whose only asset is its rights at this point) the govt seems to be moving slowly on granting additional routes and frequencies to other national carriers.

This has been limiting supply. On the other hand, with the explosion of immigration to the US and Canada from India and with the growth of IT sector in India over the past few years, the demand for award travel has probably increased at a rate far greater than supply. This means, they can keep award levels fairly high.

Another problem with travel to India is that the fare difference between deep discounted consolidator tickets and published fares is way too high. This gap needs to come down as more businesses find other ways to lower costs and airlines find it effective to lower published prices and still increase revenue (by cutting the consolidator prices).

My understanding after researching this more is that this is due to the high price-sensitivity of the leisure market in India. While the NRI/expat/Foreign/Biz customer is willing to pay for convenience and connectivity this is not the case for the leisure traveller (usually families of Indian immigrants in the US that account for a good chunk of travelling public). So in this market the leisure rates (discounted, consolidator or non-mileage earning fares) are quite low while the biz/mileage earning rates are high.

Some of this is changing with UA entering the market and all established players increasing frequency or route network.

If connectivity to SIN, KUL, HKG increases that will bring down prices a lot since those
cities are served fairly competitively from the US. We have to see if 9W (Jet Airways which only flies domestic now) and the new owner of AI are interested in increasing Asian connectivity.

You can always beat the system I can suggest a routing which will take you to Bombay from JFK/LAX/SFO fpr $1199 except in July August

drbala, I am aware of some (probably different) legal and permitted routings that do bring prices to Indian down as well. I suggest that we not disclose them publicly for the fear that airline lurkers go and change rules that "fix this". Once we collate sufficient info on Indian routes, I suggest we find a way to distribute these routings and tricks informally. In the interim email is probably a better way to disseminate the info.

enjoystravel
Good idea. Why dont you set it up and I will join and participate

Look at partner awards for travel to India (e.g. UA Mileage Plus members should consider breaking the award to LH, OS, SK or NH)... I also suggest using C class awards as availability seems to be better than Y awards.

NickP,

You are right. Biz class awards have better availability than coach on most airlines to India. I found this very true on BA. BA has a biz class RT for just 100,000 miles to India from SFO/LAX or anywhere else in the US. CX is another carrier that has good biz class award (though with the current turmoil there it is not a good bet). It had reduced mileage awards in economy to Asia which also included India I think. If you have AA miles, you can also fly on JAL though the availability is variable. On Star you are better off with UA than SQ or LH (though with status I have friends who had good luck with LH).

On a side note, the flights from India are currently flying quite empty even during the peak summer. Many attribute it to the slowdown in IT spending on its repurcussions across other sections. Carriers have started discounting aggressively especially for fares originating in India. I understand that discounting in Biz is rampant though I have not see much steep discounts on RTWs.

UA with 14 flts a week and many others are flying light passenger loads from India to US and Europe. (though inbound traffic into India is holding up and not fully crumbling).

I would post the link to the newstory but I misplaced it somewhere. It was reported in a few different places.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by drbala:
enjoystravel
Good idea. Why dont you set it up and I will join and participate</font>


So any update on this secret routing?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by enjoystravel:
On a side note, the flights from India are currently flying quite empty even during the peak summer. &lt;...snip...&gt; I would post the link to the newstory but I misplaced it somewhere. It was reported in a few different places.</font> I read the story in The Hindustan Times a couple of weeks ago when I was spending a few days in New Delhi, and posted a list of fares ex-DEL (http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/Forum11/HTML/005805.html) to London that were reported in the article.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SJC2ISP:

So any update on this secret routing?</font> I don't think that its much of a secret that for less than US$1k one can travel to India from the US (east coast) via BKK. Tickets ex-BKK to India can be purchased locally for around US$200 (just did this a few weeks ago). Flights US to BKK can be had for less than US$800.

On which airline are you suggesting buying the BKK-BOM? Last time I did that, Cathay was quite pricey.

BKK-DEL/BOM can be had for $200-300 if you book in advance.

One way to circumvent the problem is not to book an award travel to DEL/BOM but rather to BKK. From there, take a paid flight to India.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Bourne:
BKK-DEL/BOM can be had for $200-300 if you book in advance.

One way to circumvent the problem is not to book an award travel to DEL/BOM but rather to BKK. From there, take a paid flight to India. </font> Exactly. MSP2000, that was my point... For example, you will find that local shops offer TG/DEL and AI/BOM at US$200 or less. You'll find dozens of ticket offices within a 5-10 minute walk in the Sukhumvit area (say, between Soi 3 and Soi 16) that will offer these fares.

Thanks for the tips on BKK. I guess it works well for UA travellers.

How about people with AA miles? I want business class seats from India. Unfortunately CX does not allow award trips originating in India. I have to go with Asiana, which is not my first preference.

I am also looking for alternate strategies which will allow me to fly AA metal as far as possible while flying from the US to India. AA flies to NRT and TPE from the West Coast and LHR/CDG among others from the East Coast. I would hopefully be able to upgrade with my coupons on AA metal.

Any tips on how to get a decent price ticket with AA to and fro the US, and another carrier onwards. I think LHR-DEL should be the cheapest since it has a lot of competition and US-LHR is also cheap. However I do not want to have two separate tickets but have one ticket since a misconect could spoil things.


Possible routes are:
US-TPE-DEL
US-NRT-DEL
US-LHR-DEL
US-CDG-DEL

[This message has been edited by SJC2ISP (edited 07-23-2001).]