sfmaster

I am starting to think about our routing to India from Atlanta for family of four in February/March

I am looking at Jet Airways (trying to make our trip as comfortable as possible) and like younger fleet seems like good configuration.

I keep reading about JA flying new NY flights but don't see anything about on their website

rhkkmk

i believe it may be in the fall or winter for a start up...continental has a new service from october, 2005

JamesA

The start up seems to be delayed, from ATL the Continental flight that is non stop from EWR to Delhi sounds a good idea. I think Delta has a route now too, other options would be like Air France ( seatback TVs even in coach on their 777s ) which I think do ATL-CDG and then onwards.
The Jet Airways Airbus A-340's are ex-South African Airways and at the moment a couple have been leased to Air India to cover 'their' increase in flights.

From NYC area lots morew choices, Emirates twice daily non-stop to Dubai and then onwards throughout India, if you route thru Dubai you have access to lots of flights that go straight to regional destinations so if your first destination is not Mumbai or Delhi then worth looking at, all seatbacks TV's in every class but excellent service.

rkkwan

DL has long flown Paris - Mumbai with their own metal. Timely connection from ATL.

Question is, where in India are you going?

sfmaster

Thanks for thoughts. I would certainly rather fly straight out of ATL than going anywhere to start.

I will want to go to Mumbai to start. I will also go to Bangalore and Calcutta. I was looking at the JA all India trip but will have to check if that works out for only a couple of trips over about 4 weeks. We are visiting family not heaving duty touring.

We are 2 adults and 2 small kids. I was hoping to use UA miles to maybe swing biz class - the charts I thought said 90K miles but now they say I had wrong chart and it is $150K which I can't swing.

Many of the Delta flights look like you are at risk of codesharing (maybe not knowing) with AlItalia which I hear is horrible.

I have pondered stopping for 24-36 hours en route to chill out in hotel and walk around so I Don't mind Paris or London to do that in.

I was looking at Emirates and Virgin Atlantic. But not sure if it will be worth it to make the within states hop to that starting point.

I will need to balance that extra couple of hours travelling with chance for more comfortable plane/etc.

I will check out the Continental too.

Thanks for any other thoughts.

rkkwan

If you live in Atlanta, I don't see why you would need to think so hard to <b>not fly</b> Delta or its partners Air France and KLM, unless their prices are terrible or anything. [You don't need to fly Alitalia if you don't want to; they don't fly their own planes to ATL anyways.]

An ATL-xxx-BOM roundtrip will earn you over 17,000 miles already. Not much more and each of you can get a free domestic ticket on DL or one of its partners.

someotherguy

Delta flies their own metal to BOM via CDG.

With United, it's usually pretty cheap to go to SIN or BKK (and you can upgrade for 30k miles each way on a cheap ticket). From there, Singapore airlines and others have fairly low prices to destinations in India. Or you could use United or Star Alliance business class award tickets to get to SIN or BKK for 90k miles. This is a long way round and probably not recommended unless you want to earn or burn a lot of United miles (or would like to stopover in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore or Thailand). And upgrade and award seats can be pretty hard to come by. Head over to www.flyertalk.com for expert advice.

agtoau

With United Mileage Plus it takes 120K miles for a free business class ticket from America to India. Usually they will put you on Lufthansa or on Singapore Airlines (I just got booked on Singapore Airlines but then decided I would fly Swiss instead and so cancelled the award ticket). For Decemeber travel, it is almost certain that Lufthansa will not have an award slot available for you (you have to book 9-12 months in advance since a limited number of seats are thrown open for award travel).

I am a proponent of breaking the journey midway in Europe for an overnight stop, especially if you are flying economy. It helps you get over the fatigue factor. However, you say you have two small ones with you, so that probably adds a layer of complexity to the logistics of an overnight stop.

sfmaster

Thanks everyone - I will recall United - I am flying in Feb so not 12 months but not the high high season either. This guy on the phone INSISTED 150K - and that India was NOT included in the South Asia fares but in fact in Central Asia - Suspicous!

Your right RKKWan - I should probably just do Delta. I have not moved to Atlanta yet so I am not quite in the OBVIOUSLY Delta mode yet.

Want to book soon to get it done!

Kenstee

In belive Jet Airways does fly to Mumbai from London though. Maybe you could get a good fare to London and this option may be worth your while. Also, American is starting non-stop service from Chicago-Delhi. Not sure of fares.

rkkwan

UA groups India, Nepal, &amp; Pakistan as &quot;Central Asia&quot;, and you can download the Star Alliance Awards chart from united.com. It's clearly stated as 80k/120k/160k (first/business/coach) via the Atlantic.

rkkwan

BTW, Jet Airways is a FF partner with Northwest. However, you can't earn NW Worldperk miles on these routes: SIN-BOM, KUL-MAA &amp; most importantly LHR-BOM.

someotherguy

United plans to code share the Jet Airways LHR-BOM flight. See
http://www.united.com/press/detail/0...2900-1,00.html