How To Spend Air India Flying Returns Miles

Flying Returns is Air India’s loyalty program. Reward Points earned from flying, credit card spending, and elsewhere can be spent in several ways. Using points for flights usually offers the best value.

The Flying Returns program was completely refreshed in 2024, with significant changes to earning and spending points as well as elite status qualification. The usage of Reward Points for flights changed to a variable system at this time. Fixed rates are no longer published for Air India tickets or for tickets with Star Alliance partners.

Spending Reward Points for Air India flights

With the program changes in 2024, the rates required for all Reward Points tickets are now variable. Points prices offered can vary depending on when you book, available inventory, and current ticket cash prices. This system is less transparent and more challenging to plan miles collection compared to a traditional fixed-price-only system. However, it does mean that ticket availability could be much better, albeit at higher prices.

For Air India flights, there are three types of award tickets available.

• Value fares. These are the lowest-priced award fares offered. Reward Points rates vary but will be lower than the Prime fare offered.
• Prime fares. These are fixed-rate award fares. Rates are higher than those offered by Value tickets and are designed for last-minute redeeming.
• Money and points fares are directly tied to the cash prices for tickets and are available as long as there are still seats for sale. You choose the amount of points (and cash) to use with a sliding scale. Especially at the last minute, the value will be lower than points-only tickets.

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

Rates for any route can be checked in two ways. Firstly, you can check the Value award ranges (and fixed Prime rates) using the online calculator tool.

Some examples of economy class award rates for Air India flights include:

Secondly, when signed in as a Flying Returns member, you can check the currently available rates using the standard search engine on the Air India website.

Spending Reward Points for partner flights

As Air India is a member of Star Alliance, Reward Points can be used for award tickets with all alliance members. As with Air India flights, the rates for partner airline tickets can vary. Again, the rates offered can be checked using the calculator tool on the Flying Returns website, and actual rates and availability (for some airlines) can be checked using the search engine.

Image: Air India

At the time of writing, the calculator tool was not displaying rates for partner flights (likely an issue early on in the release of the revamped loyalty program). Experience suggests that rates are generally higher than those of equivalent Air India routes. They are often also higher than typical rates offered by other Star Alliance loyalty programs – Air India Flying Returns has not typically offered the best value here.

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Some points to note for partner airline tickets:

• Flights can only be booked one sector at a time. For multiple sector routes, you will need to make separate bookings. This obviously increased the rate, but you also need to be careful with connection times and protection in case of delays; with separate tickets, airlines are not obligated to protect connections.
• Online booking is only available for the following airlines – United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, and Austrian Airlines. For all other airlines, you will need to call Flying Returns.

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Using Reward Points for upgrades

Reward Points can be used to upgrade cabins on Air India flights. Any flight can be upgraded by one cabin, so from economy to premium economy on long-haul flights or business on flights where this cabin is not offered. Cash tickets, cash and points, and flights fully paid with Reward Points can all be upgraded.

Upgrades are offered for a fixed price, subject to availability. This makes them an attractive and possibly good-value use of points when cash prices are high. Once again, the rates are published by Flying Returns separately for every route and can be checked using the calculator tool on the website. Some examples of pricing include:

Do you regularly use Air India’s Flying Returns program? What do you think of the changes made to the program in 2024? Feel free to discuss how you earn and use points and where you see the best value in the comments section below.