India on AA (1-world) or UA (*A)?
 

I'm taking a new job, which will have me doing several installations all over India (ie. Delhi, Bangalore, and others).

I've been a very avid AA flyer, but Asia is definitely not their strength. However, I don't see many other options on UA either.

I'm platinum with AA, and nothing with UA (I've only flown one segment on UA in the last several years).

It appears that with PHX as my home airport that it doesn't really matter if I fly east or west, the travel time seems about the same. If I fly through Europe, I can get into India on BA. If fly through Asia Cathay seems a viable choice. I don't see any choices in 1-world once I'm in India.

United definitely has a better Asian network and several Asian partners, but service into India seems limited as well.

Those of you in the know, I'd like to hear what people make their decisions based on. I'm basically looking for comp upgrades from Biz to First Class, and total mileage earning potential. AA has been very good to me on both counts, but their partners are stingy with comp upgrades (at least from my perspective).

Lastly, are there other options that I should be looking at as well. AA and United are both company preferred airlines so I started there.

Thanks for any and all help.
Wantok

I fly to India 2 or 3 times a year and I am an avid DL flier ( and its partners ). Why dont you checkout http://www.delta.com/skymiles/getmil...ners/index.jsp ?

In fact I am flying to India in dec and Jan by Korean Air ( LAX - ICN - BOM - ICN -LAX ) using DL skymiles FC award.



[This message has been edited by debo_nair (edited 09-19-2003).]

If you go east, Fly BA. But.. I would only do this if you join BA's exec club. They are a little more generous with the Op-ups for their own elite's.

AA/Cathay is a good mix going west, but Cathay gets mixed reviews for Op-ups. And again and op-up is NEVER guaranteed with anyone..

Flipside

If India is where you wish to fly here are some suggestions.

OneWorld - If you are earning miles on AA continue doing so and use 135K in Business to fly on AA & BA. BA's Business class product is the best in the market to India. More so for only 135K you can fly there, another option is buy an AA ticket and use a VIPOW to upgrade that to London and just use 60K AA miles for LHR to India.


StarAlliance - If India is the prime destination I would say rack your miles on Mexicana. Fly United etc buy open a Mexicana account and accumulate mileage there cause for 90K you can fly Business Class on Lufthansa or Singapore. Compared to United's or Lufthansa's reward Chart. Mexicana's Star Alliance chart is the cheapest. 90K (Lufthansa/Singapore) is the cheapest Business Class reward to India on any airline using Mexicana mileage.
No upgrades to India thats the drawback off the program.

Hope this helps.

Northwest/KLM is another good option. Can get you to BOM, DEL, and CCU from PHX, and then Jet Airways (India's leading domestic carrier) is a NW WorldPerks partner. And unlike BA/AA, you do not have to worry about getting miles on the Trans-atlantic segments. The ability to earn base miles on Delta and CO domestic flights makes this an even more attractive option.

Edited to add: NW/CO give complementary upgrades to elite members on domestic US flights. NW flights to India also tend to be overbooked in coach, resulting in very good operational upgrade opportunities for elite level flyers. This is true as long as they have 747s on the route, which have very large WBC cabins.

Star Alliance has excellent connections into India, but no miles that I am aware of for domestic India flights.

[This message has been edited by Montys_Mayhem (edited 09-20-2003).]

Getting rewards for CO/NW flights is next to impossible in Coach. More so its a RIP off for a 120K award in Business compared to AA/BA's 135K.

You can definetly earn mileage on AA/BA by flying on AA to London and onwards on BA and all this can be accumalated on AA itself.

Also do shop around for business fares if cost is a factor. They are discounted quite a bit. Local travel agents in the valley quote between $3000-$4000 RT from SFO. 1stair.net also has good deals. I think you can upgrade from business to First with not too many miles.

[This message has been edited by SJC2ISP (edited 09-20-2003).]

Another very viable option for you would be the new non-stop flight from YYZ offered on Air Canada. The flight would be YYZ-DEL and avoids the early morning connections in Europe as well as the late night departures out of India. Discounted C class fares can be had for about $5000 CAD ($3500US) and you can earn miles on either UA or AC. AC's reward to India will be 75K for Y and 100K for J.

strong vote for UA and Star (any surprise)?

Biggest reason: Most OPTIONS to the most CITIES. If you're headed to Bangalore you can take SQ all the way or LH. Same for Chennai. NW/DL/KLM etc. hit Mumbai and Delhi and that's about it I believe.

Jet Airways is excellent, but you don't want to land at midnight in Mumbai and have to wait for several hours for a Jet Airways to bangalore or chennai for example. you can take the big carrier directly to your desired location. then travel jet airways within india on day trips if you're doing multiple stops. you can hold a NW card to collect the small mileages on Jet airways.

In addition, options galore. you can take UA to SIN or BKK then connect to SQ or TG. Or you can take SQ/TG all the way from SFO/LAX (closer to PHX). Or you can take combo UA and/or LH via FRA. with a corp discount on UA you may save doing the UA to Asia and then transfer to SQ/TG. SQ/TG/LH all go to delhi/mumbai/BLR(not sure about TG) and MAA, and you can accrue all miles on UA (or any *A carrier).

it's no contest *A IMO

Swaghmar - great find. have you used mexicana to issue an award to india? diffulties? this chart is even better than UA's (which is better than most) star alliance chart.

Used MX miles for LH awards regularly. All the Star Alliance partners look for "I" Class inventory for BUSINESS AWARDS.

Phones are answered instantly and no wait times. Only thing is you have to communicate a bit more since they dont speak fluent english.

However date changes are not possible once the outbound flight has been taken.

I'm a regular NY-India flyer and generally do it via AA/BA to protect my EXP status and because most of my other flying is to South America where AA is king. However, if you start with no real preference and US/India will be most of your flying, I think there are a number of better choices, especially if convenient connections are important to you. Lufthansa provides excellent service to multiple Indian cities with good connection times in Frankfurt. The Delta/Air France combination also works very well although many other posters really dislike connecting at CDG (it doesn't bother me and they have the earliest return connection to NY).

And, as at least one other poster said, Jet Airways is terrific in-country.

I've tabulated everyones responses and included it below in case anyone performs a search on the topic later. It looks to me that AA/BA and CX are somewhat viable options. But that United and *A definitely serve the market much better. Which is what I kind of thought going in.

I'm conflicted with loyalty now. I've realy enjoyed flying 1-world, and I've received lots of op-ups to London on AA.

But it definitely looks like *A is going to serve a lot more of my needs. Especially as travel shifts from India to Thailand and China next year.

How quickly with Business class travel to India will you gain elite status with *A, and do they treat their top elites pretty well.

I've been plat with AA for 4 years now, and I'm pretty satisfied. Like I said I've had lots of J->F op upgrades pretty much everytime I cross the Atlantic to/from London. And the 100% bonus for Plat lets the miles add up pretty quickly.

I assume that UA has a comparable plan?

PHX – India (Order based on serial responses of this thread, ie. no preference on my part)

1.Delta –
a. Via Korean Airlines
b. Direct to Mumbai and Delhi
c. Via AirFrance connection in CDG
2. AA
a. East via BA
i. BA is a little better for op-up if you are in the BA plan
ii. Biz on BA is the best going into India
iii. 135K Award to India via AA/BA
b. West via Cathay
i. Fly YYZ-DEL – avoids an early morning connection in Europe
3. United
a. Join Mexicana and fly United for 90K you can get award to India – However, no upgrades.
b. Luftansa through Frankfurt/Munich
c. Singapore
d. Has good connections to India
e. Air Canada: Fly YYZ-DEL – avoids an early morning connection in Europe
f. Most options to the most cities
i. Bangaore/Chennai: SQ or LH all the way
4. Northwest/KLM/Continental
a. Jet Airways is partner for domestic connections
b. 120K award level
c. Direct to Mumbai and Delhi

Get UA or AC to match your One world Status and use this AC flight. We had a posting [on AC] SE can upgrade on a $1600 M fare and bonus points of 5000

Wantok - good summary. couple minor items:

1. your cathay comment is actually an air canada point.
2. i don't recall lufthansa flying to india from Munich, only FRA
3. on star alliance Thai is another connection option from Bangkok to various cities in india. technically they're an option all the way from LA, but previous posters recommend Biz class on others before Thai. but they're an option (and inexpensive) on BKK to/from India shorter sector.
4. i thought delta and singapore have some arrangement as well.

I believe LH gets you to *A Elite status fastest if you're buying biz tickets (search LH forum) on LH (or maybe on other carriers too). UA for example in its program gives extra bonus miles in biz, but only the actual distance miles count towards elite.

[This message has been edited by uastarflyer (edited 09-22-2003).]

[This message has been edited by uastarflyer (edited 09-22-2003).]