Mumbai or bust...
 

Proof that advertising works. Having been chained to my seat and forced to watch the bmi Mumbai promotional video at least five times, have finally decided to visit India and Sri Lanka in July / Aug.

LHR > BOM availability is fine. Outgoing 23 July, incoming 6 Aug, £507 Q class. A bit pricey, but with the upgrade vouchers should be able to get PE. And the 9K destination miles will help with next year's gold renewal.

My problem is getting to CMB. The best I can find on Expedia is £315 on Jet Airways via Chennai/Madras, 27 July / 4 Aug, which seems a lot. The bmi video (I think) talks about onward connections with partner Jet Airways, but a call to DC today drew a blank.

Do any FT'ers have any bright ideas? e.g. Low cost airlines (Deccan don't seem to go to CMB), or perhaps a good travel agent in Mumbai with access to better fares?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Grantosol

Indian Airlines and Sri Lankan also fly this route, and I can see in expertflyer.com some cheaper fares - i.e in the GBP200 mark.

I am pretty sure no-one else flies direct on the routing. As you have found out 9W offer connections via MAA as do Sahara (S2) so that might be worth a look.

No LCC's on India to Sri Lanka routes I am afraid.

You could Deccan it from BOM-MAA/CJB, and try UL CJB/MAA-CMB. The UL fares to South India were dirt cheap, when I looked into it last (although far cheaper ex-LK than ex-IN).

You can also try CCJ(Calicut)-CMB or TRV-CMB. They used to be around 100-150 pounds return with Sri Lankan.

I've was thinking of doing a similar thing, but have given up using the BOM route.
See thread at StarAlliance Forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...99#post4179399

Just be careful that any connection through BOM to CAA is actually through BOM as they also have a Domestic Airport (Santa Cruz) about seven km's from Chhatrapati International (BOM).

Jet fly to CAA from them both and you DO NOT want to transfer!

You might indeed want to try to find an agent in Madras. I'm about to book a flight for a wedding in Calcutta, and I'm being advised by both the bride and my travel agent to fly to Mumbai or Delhi (probably LH to Delhi as BD to Mumbai is way more expensive), and then book an internal flight to Calcutta through a travel agent in India, because buying a ticket in Britain will be far more expensive.

Related question: I can't find Mumbai on the drop-down menus for booking flights using my DC miles. Is it ever there?

Perhaps a one-way SkyTeam award on Czech/CSA?