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).]

Please remember to add the following for AA

You can fly from PHX to LAX and onwards to BOM/DEL/MAA etc on CX all for 135K. You can even fly on LX (Swiss) from PHX to ZRH via a hub city in the US onwards to BOM.

Most important thing is reward availability. Its one thing to rack up the miles but how easily are you going to be able to use them to earn reward seats is important. In that respect CO & NW are the WORST.

DL & AF maximum bang for the buck since its only 100K. But AF Business Class, is like travelling in cargo. The attendants are nasty and rude and dont care much. Delta on the other hand is fantastic. Great service and one of the best crews on the CDG to BOM sector.

You need not worry about the CDG terminal anymore since they have AF & DL landing in Terminal E the new one now. So it wont be as bad as they make it out to be. However overall the very fact that its 100K for Business is a fantastic deal.

Another option using Northwest miles is Malayasian Airlines from LAX. Way better Business Class thatn NW/KLM. For 120K.

Just an fyi, I'm getting lots of advice about how to use miles to travel to India, which I'm sure is valuable for many other posters, but in my situation, I'm better suited being able to rack-up the maximum number of miles. Aside from possibly buying my wife one ticket, I'll probably not use miles at all for travel to India...but to other vacation destinations. Upgrading to F may be an exception, but my company currently allows Biz Class, I have a really good op-up rate on AA between ORD - LHR.

So the FF program that earns me the most miles in J on a fairly direct route from PHX is of most interest to me.

Also, I just learned today that the first job will be in Mumbai. I should make my first trip in early November.

Thanks again everyone

wantok

wantok, if you can reply: who do you work for?

Would that this were the case - the new "simple" award chart has an asterisk next to the 135K award noting "transatlantic only".

I had scheduled a trip from my home in Hawaii to India for this month (which I had to postpone for work reasons) under the old JL 90K award. When I reschedule for next year, not only will I have to pay 50% more miles, but I'll have to fly 3/4 of the way around the world (and then back the same way!) to get there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm much happier to be an AA flier than, for example, a CO flier these days, but this particular set of changes really sticks in my craw.

Alot of points and options were covered in the previous emails so I will make mine short.

1) Be sure to sign up for Asiamiles at www.asiamiles.com and you will get free access to OAG where you can plan various itineraries online and with all or specific airlines. Or just go to staralliance.com to check on staralliance flight routings. You could use asiamiles to collect miles but they aren't status oriented.

2) If you go to India often and will be going to Asia more in the future, be sure to join Cathay's Marco Polo (Oneworld) program where upgrades are often if you are Gold status or higher. Besides, Cathay is a great airline and their FC product is very very nice.

I am PPS with SQ, Gold with TG and Gold with NWA but as I used to live in HKG, I found my colleagues and pals were getting upgraded constantly on CX but I always had to use miles or get really lucky to be upgraded (to first) on staralliance flights.

I am new to this site and think it's great! I wish I found you guys earlier.

------------------
Oliver O Ontiveros

wantok writes:

... I'll probably not use miles at all for travel to India...but to other vacation destinations...

So the FF program that earns me the most miles in J on a fairly direct route from PHX is of most interest to me.

==========

I don't know if it's obvious enough, but I cannot stress enough the issue raised by others re award seat availability. NW/CO/KL are truly awful in that regard, irrespective of destination or booking class.

AA/OW are pretty good in terms of redemption. AA service is also significantly better than NW. Too bad that on the pricing/earning side OW seems more a patchwork quilt than an alliance.

(No experience with UA/*A.)

-Pushpak

[This message has been edited by Pushpak (edited 09-29-2003).]

I've redeemed several awards to India on *A with UA miles (specifically on Singapore and Lufthansa). No problems...that is, in COACH class award availability. I don't have experience on Biz Class redemption, but I've read multiple threads on Biz Class award seat difficulty on SQ in the UA forum.

I haven't checked the status of this thread in many days, and I'm truly grateful for the many replies and excellent advice. I see that I have sevaral choices, and I will have to make my decisions soon. I'm particularily leaning towards the Lufthansa options, as there is a direct flight to Germany from PHX daily.

There was also a personal question about whom I work for.

I work for Motorola (going on 7 years now), and I've been CDMA Test/Development Engineer for the last 20 months. In that role I've generally supported 1st time deployments of brand new products. I'm always looking for international travel options, and I've recently agreed to take position supporting all deployments going on India. I'll probably travel to India monthly for the next 3-6 months.

I'm excited for the opportunity, but hope that all of the travel will not be too exhausting on my family. Of course prior to my first trip I've bribed my wife with 2-weeks in Mauii. So she is having a hard time complaining at the moment.

I'll update the summary chart in a few days.

When my schedule is a little less hectic.

Thanks again,
Wantok

Malaysia Airlines flies to 5 cities in India from its hub in Kuala Lumpur, which is served 5x weekly from LA. Their biz class product is excellent, and the airline is adding sleeper seats in biz and first in 2004.

They are allied with Delta, however, as a west-coast resident, I find Delta's frequency and connections to be much less favorable than either AA or United.

Marginally - AA and UA do not fly their own metal to India (I'm not sure of the current situation with UA) DL does.

DL - Daily JFK-BOM. Once the AF-KL merger goes through, Skyteam and partners would be dominant in BOM - {DL,AF,KL,AZ,KE}

A prime consideration should be # of departures from DEL/BOM. If you've ever tried to get out of DEL or BOM without a reservation weeks in advance, you know what I'm talking about. I'd think that *A give you many more options and you may someday really really really want to get the heck out and you'll want options. Your *A status will give you additional clout as well.

My top recommendation would be to go with AC-Aeroplan. You'll get *Gold status and Space Available upgrades on full coach fare after 35K mi.

In addition, as you know, AA does not have an Admirals Club in PHX while UA does. From a longer term PHX-base perspective, UA is a much better option than AA ... especially for west coast/asia travel.

Trust me, I'm a recent PHX-based AA to UA convert.

Afterthought - Of all the airlines I ever fly on, by far, CX has the best service. So if service and comfort is high on your priority list, give the CX Marco Polo club a serious look.

[This message has been edited by JetCity (edited 10-06-2003).]

I was just told regarding AC that the Upgrades even for a Super Elite dont help or do not qualify on the YYZ to DEL route. More so AC only goes to DEL.

Some general comments on North America - INdia Route.

If you are used to AA, AA takes you to NRT or LHR. You have to then use CX (NRT-HKG-BOM/DEL) or BA (LHR-BOM/DEL/CCU/MAA). You can use your VIPOW s or mileage upgrades to NRT. CX Marcopolo club is great but there are no upgrades from Business to First on HKG-DEL/BOM.

AC's YYZ-DEL (non-stop Polar route) is great but the availability is much better DEL-YYZ than YYZ-DEL. Swill will be joining OW soon, so AA/LX OW fares will be great options (AA already codeshares on Swiss - now flying only to BOM after dropping DEL).

JetCity, I almost always get my J/F tickets out of India the day of or the day before my actual travel date. Rarely had problems with availability. I sometimes do a dozen trips out of India (mostly in discounted J/F). My travel desk does block seats on a few of my favorite airlines a few days before sometimes but most of the time they are booked and ticketed on the day of travel. I do not see J/F availability out of BOM/DEL (or even MAA/BLR for that matter) a real issue. Coach in peak season (which keeps expanding) is a different story altogether.

While I am loyal to OneWorld (BA, CX from INdia, QF in the past, awards on Swiss, JAL) I fly almost every airline including AI/IA, MH, CI, SQ, UA, LH, etc. Never had problems getting the seat I want on the day I want in the busiest travel season.

The tough ones were: BLR-FRA (Bangalore - Frankfurt during SARS) some SQ flts, but with massive capacity increase lately there have been no real problems. Our company does a lot of last minute travel for our consultants and we can almost always get tickets out of INdia with 1 to 3 days notice.

Regarding airlines alliance of choice - while Star had the highest frequency in the past, things are changing a lot. MH has lot of direct connectivity to the non-Metros (if you need to go to Hyderabad, Bangalore, etc.)

India is opening up ASEAN to open skies (the Prime Minister announced it this week at the ASEAN summit). This will make DL/MH combo very attractive. CX and SQ are still my favorite airlines but I almost always choose BA out of India as CX has only J class service on DEL-HKG and BOM-HKG routes. QF used to server SIN-BOM but dropped it. IF UA ever returns, then your SWUs can be a great help.

One of the most important things about redemption when comparing Star Alliance & OneWorld is that none of the Star Alliance partners let you make date changes on the return once the journey has begun.
Example - United, Lufthansa, Mexicana.

OneWorld on the other lets you make as many date changes as you want for free.

One point of clarification. On a UA award on UA metal you can change dates, even after departure, with no fee, any number of times. It's a UA award on another *A metal that the above statement is true. I don't know the rules of the other *A programs.

so would the above mean that an AA award on CX metal for example can have date changes after departure? that is a benefit.

Hi ! Yes you can change the CX flight using AA miles. However you cant do that using points of UA or LH when redeeming miles on a carrier other than itself.

When I used Qantas miles to book a ticket with BA I had same problem. Qantas says BA won't let them change the dates. Not sure if that is true or not, but I never needed anyway.

Now moving forward in 2004. AA is the best option reason being is Delta is increasing it Business-First award to 120K no more 100K like it used to be. Another serious problem is that you cant issue a First Award on MX after Mar 31, 2004.

AA - 135K Business using AA & BA is the best option I feel.

I have used *Alliance for my trips to India after Oneworld disappeared from Canada.( more or less) I have had no problms getting award seats on TG to BKK via Pacific and onwards. But TG J to BKK is 100000 points and to India is 185000. So I try get the award to BKK and buy a cheap ticket to India. Works all the time. Also, If so desired you can go TG through Europe and connect with TG to India without any big problems. SQ is harder to get awards (except Y) and LH seats are frequently available. So the choices ( award or otherwise) are better with *alliance.

Just found out breaking news that Mexicana is only breaking its relationship only with UA though it wont be a part of Star Alliance you can still get the 90K BUS and 120K FIRST award to India on LH/TG/SQ using Mexicana points.

S

I thought BA now restricts date changes on award travel issued on AA or others. So if you use BA, you may need to stick to BA flts only. (I am not sure how the connect flts in the US work for this - have not tested this rule personally yet).

Are there any travel agents in Canada/USA that offer "consolidator" business class tickets on either global alliance airlines (OW, or *Alliance), and at the same time one can get full qualifying/status miles credit on the airline's FF plan?

FlyerGoldII,

There are many travel agents that offer discounted business class and first class fares to Asia. They work with consolidators or the airlines directly. 1stair.net is often referenced in these boards.

Most of the TAs are mom and pop outfits that specialize in specific markets. I know the Indian sub-continent TAs servicing the west coast well and they work with Star more than OW. TG (Star partner) has deep discount fares in business and first that get full status miles in its partner programs. The equipment is old but the service is OK. Cathay has deals sometimes but is quite full the next few months (you need HKG specialists for that). BA has official deals for DTW-LHR because of their NWC introduction in the DTT market.

The TA for India from west coast that I was OK with is Pan Air Travel from LAX area (310-915-0088 I believe). I have also had good experience with an agent out of Detroit for East Coast based travel to India (I don't have the info right now).

YOu can spot these usually from ethnic newspapers. Unfortunately, the situation is till buyer beware. I usually cross-check with the local BBB and verify the years in business and complaint history first and then call the airline to make sure that the ticket is Kosher. I insist on credit card payment even if they charge a CC surchage.

You may want to look into Toronto TAs. You probably can get deals on LH (as it is aggressively trying to capture the Indian market). India Abroad from local Indian grocery stores will show you a list of local agents.

Beware of "brokers" that get you award tickets. There is an outfit in Canada that advertises discounted business class and they simply "broker" award tickets and that could get you in trouble.