I need to go to Bangalore for an audit. What is the best way to get there from SFO?

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Luke in Silicon Valley
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Could you tell me what room I am in, again.....

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lukeaa:
I need to go to Bangalore for an audit. What is the best way to get there from SFO?
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I'd say via MAA (Chennai) and take a domestic to Bangalore. As an AA, try CX as it is in OneWorld

This may no longer be relevant to you, but others may benefit. So here is some info.

You can go one-stop on Lufthansa from SFO. SFO-FRA, FRA-BLR. I cannot remember which way it is but one way the connections are good (within a few hrs) and the other way you have to wait about 6 hours. UA now codeshares on all routes to BLR so you can choose UA flt numbers if you prefer.

The main international gateways in India are all well connected to Bangalore (BLR). It is the hub of high tech and bio tech industries. The highest domestic seat capacity is on BOM-BLR (next only to BOM-DEL). So you can connect from BOM, DEL, MAA or any other Indian city to BLR. BOM is about 90 mins with high connectivity (with some construction work in BLR one of Indian Airlines IC flts from BOM may be cancelled during the fall season). DEL is about 150 mins (2 and half hrs) but the fares are affordable - approx $200 - 250 RT in economy. If you are of Indian origin you can get someone to book the tickets locally for you at a much lower rate (but you get lower baggage allowance).

Madras/Chennai (MAA) is the next nearest International airport to Bangalore (BLR) but the problem is that there are very few flts between MAA and BLR. The incoming flts come in at midnight and you need to stay overnight in Chennai and catch the early morning flt to BLR (Jet and Indian Airlines both have early morning flts around 6:30 AM). There is a Radisson and Trident (Oberoi group of hotels) about 15 mins from the airport. It is just a 40 minute flt including takeoff and landing.

CX does not go to Chennai. It goes to Delhi and Mumbai/Bombay (BOM). However CX routes via HKG and the connections are not very good. You have a long layover in HKG. AA now has its codeshare on Swiss (they do price the fares high) and flies to DEL. If you want to use VIPOWs or mileage based upgrades, you can fly AA metal to Zurich (ZRH) and connect via Swiss with an AA codeshare.