Air India Business Class

Old Apr 23rd, 2004, 03:07 PM
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Air India Business Class

We are just about to cash in ff miles that will get us to BKK on United business class next February. With a 3 hour layover we can catch a flight in business class on Air India to Delhi. We will be able to return to BKK on Thai. The price is less than $400 pp for the one way ticket BKK-DEL. We do not have enough miles to fly directly from Connecticut to Delhi so this is our best option. Will Air India be ok in business class? We've not heard good things about Air India.
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Old Apr 23rd, 2004, 06:14 PM
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Are you visitng BKK at all, or do you just want to go to Delhi? Because going through BKK is a really long way to get to DEL, whichever way you go there.

I"d look into buying a economy ticket and upgrade to business using miles as an alternative.
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Old Apr 23rd, 2004, 06:20 PM
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for whatever it means, i know a number of indians around boston who return home from time to time and none of them use air india....they seem to use B/A or Luftansa...

how bad could it possibly be for that short flight...

doesn't united have any code share partners that could give you a better deal??

bob
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Old Apr 24th, 2004, 08:45 AM
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Perhaps I should have done a better job of explaining my thinking. The only way to get to India using miles is by using a combination of United and one of the members of the Star Alliance. If you do this you can not buy an economy ticket and upgrade. You can only upgrade on the legs which United actually flies. The ideal way to get to Delhi from the east coast is via Frankfort on United and Lufthansa. For whatever reason, a United-Star Alliance award from North America to India costs 120,000 points versus 90,000 points for Southeast Asia so the thinking is get to Southeast Asia and then hop on a cheap flight in business class to India. If this would work from Hong Kong, Singapore or Narita it would make more sense because there a some direct flights to these cities from the US. However, either the onward flight to India from is expensive or the timing doesn't work (long layovers or flights only on certain days). We do not want to spend time in BKK this trip. If you look at a globe or a map of the world you will note that Hartford to Chicago to Tokyo to Bangkok to Delhi is pretty much a straight line - we would just be going the wrong way and switching planes one extra time.
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Old Apr 26th, 2004, 02:50 PM
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topping
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Old Apr 26th, 2004, 04:36 PM
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If for the use of your mileage routing via BKK is your best option I would only add that I think you would be much better off just getting a BKK-DEL return on Thai in Economy/coach, the maximum it could cost you would be about $450 return and I guess you could get it a little less, return.

I think you would be overeall better off just using a Thai Airways return between BKK and Delhi than using AI for Business and then paying $400 for a one way on Thai ( that is a FULL fare ). The 'maximum' the return could be is $500 absolute tops!
Sorry, I'm repeating...
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Old Apr 26th, 2004, 04:56 PM
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JamesA - not sure what your point is - the difference in cost between Thai Business Class and AI is negligible and I can not use United miles for either. Business class pricing is relatively cheap for either based on international standards. The AI timing is just better (both ways as it turns out) and I am just wondering if it is worth the risk of flying an airline that most feel is substandard.
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Old Apr 26th, 2004, 05:32 PM
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Entirely your choice, Thai though advertise BKK-DEL return Economy at B 15,435, that's about USD390 'return'.
It's your choice.
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Old Apr 26th, 2004, 06:02 PM
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I'm not interested in economy when round trip AI or Thai Bus. Class is only $650 - $700.
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