<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by swaghmar:
British Airways
- If your goal was to travel in Business or First, then no one can match the comfort and value for miles to BA. My understanding for this is as follows. BA charges 100K on Business and 125K on First. BA is the only Airline operating to India that has a bed in Business and the service is way better than Continental, Delta or United. This is in regards to THE BUSINESS & FIRST PRODUCT only.
- Redeeming an Economy Ticket the least amt of miles are required 75K only.
- No BLACK OUT DATES for Travel. Which is a big plus
Overall I think this might be the best program, if your goal was to accumulate miles for travel to India only.
</font>
I have a lot of experience flying BA between the US and India. I average 4 to 5 trips a year in paid business or first. In my experience BA's New Club World and First are the best premium cabins on the transatlantic route to India. Technically the BA Excecutive Club has no blackout dates for award travel, but in reality this is not so. It is near impossible to get seats for reward travel to India especially in Business and First. If you called them today, the first available seats for award travel will be in September or October! Also, once award travel is ticketed, you can change it only through the Executive Club dedicated reservations telephone number in the U.S. The regular BA reservations anywhere in the world cannot make any changes to flights dates or times. If you travelled from USA to India on an award ticket and wanted to change your return date or flights, the only way you can make any changes is by calling the Executive Club in the U.S. which is a real pain.
Of course, their restriction on not being able to earn miles for most of the discounted excursion fares is a major limitation.
[This message has been edited by satish_ny (edited 03-29-2002).]