I am travelling from MSP to Bangalore, India in a couple of weeks. There are two itineraries that are available on nwa.com: MSP-AMS-BOM-BLR and MSP-AMS-KWI-MCT-BLR. They are /approximately/ the same price, same total travel time and same miles.

The first is all NW flights and the second is all KLM with the last leg from MCT-BLR on "Oman Aviation 811".

Questions:

1. Would I get miles for the segment on the Oman Aviation 811? I have never heard of it and it is not on the worldperks list of partner airlines. But it is on an nwa.com flight so maybe it really is a partner?

2. Has anyone ever flown the second itinerary though Kuwait and Muscat? I have flown through Mumbai before and I'd really rather not layover there for 4 hours. It would be another connection for the KWI-MCT itinerary which would be bad on one hand that it could be delayed, but good that I could get out and stretch, etc. I think it would be fun to go through another place too and can it really get much worse than transferring in Mumbai?

I'm arriving the day before I really need to be there so I'm not worried about any delays.