Introduction to Airmiles
If you’re into the world of maximising credit card rewards, you would now know that travel redemptions (like booking flights/hotels using HDFC Smartbuy or Amex Taj vouchers) gives a higher value per point over cashback redemptions.
But what if one needs to get even more value per point? Welcome to the World of Airmiles!
While we’ve covered few articles here and there w.r.t. Vistara air miles (a.k.a. CV Points), we’ll focus on international airmiles going forward.
What is Air Miles?
Air Miles also called as Frequent Flyer miles or Airline Miles are a digital travel currency of an airline loyalty program usually given as a reward for flying frequently with an airline.
No wonder why airline loyalty program’s are also called as “Frequent Flyer” Programs (FFP).
Air Miles can also be earned by shopping through affiliate portals of the respective FFP (or) by converting reward points from credit cards.
These airmiles can then be redeemed for free flight tickets (also called as award tickets), as the airline wants to honour you for being loyal to them.
What it means to us? It means, one can earn airmiles without even flying and enjoy free flights, thanks for the ability to transfer credit card points to airmiles.
Looking at the way it works, you can very well call it as a “Frequent Spender Program”.
Why it’s lucrative?
The airmiles requirement for an award seat is usually static (this is expected to go dynamic in future) while the airline revenue rates may rise at anytime.
So if you’re little flexible and got some time to research, you can save a lot by booking an award ticket instead of a revenue ticket.
If planned right, one can book a business class ticket at a cost of an economy ticket. If you already fly revenue Business class, using airmiles can result in significant savings.
Why now?
As you might know, I have been largely ignoring international airline loyalty programs because very few are capable of playing the game in reality.
That is because it generally demands huge credit card spends.
For example, to earn the miles required for a roundtrip business class to a SE asian country, one would need ~20L spend on Citi Prestige. That’s just for one trip on a medium-haul flight.
The real fun & value is however getting award seats to Europe or United States which would require at least ~50L spends to begin with, just for a single trip.
The question is, how many have this capacity?
And on top of that, why would anyone even want to do that while most of us haven’t even explored 50% of our Incredible India?
While those are the concerns of the past, Axis Magnus (with milestone benefits), Axis Reserve (with 2X on Forex) & Axis Atlas (for airline/hotel spends) with their Points Transfer ability has given super power to Indian credit card holders to explore the airmiles game, as earning miles has become 5X faster if not more, meaning one can explore the game even with lot lower spends.
While this situation may change at any moment, this is a good time to experience international business class products just incase if you’re wondering what to do with all your points and miles that’s getting accrued in the past couple of months
