Krisflyer Gold privileges on AI (Air India)

[Gunners]

It seems that Air India will delay entry as a full member of Star Alliance until Summer 2011. There are also industry rumours that Jet Airlines will be approached to join Star Alliance given that Kingfisher will be joining One World.

The SIA website mentions that Air India even though not a member of Star Alliance is a partner airline to SIA. I believe Air India is also partner to Lufthansia.

On occassion I will have to travel internationally with Air India. I contacted SIA and asked them what benefits I would have as a Krisflyer Gold Member flying on Air India. They indicated that I have access to the lounge but they were not sure on the circumstances in relation to piority lugguage and taking more than one piece of travel lugguage on board an Air India flight. The SIA website mentions that miles will accrue to Krisflyer members when travelling on Air India.

The SIA website discusses the benefits travelling on Virgin Atlantic but it is not clear what Krisflyer Gold Benefits are honoured by Air India.

Does anyone know what benefits Krisflyer Gold members are entitled to when travelling on Air India?

Gunners

[sqdazz]

I would've thought precisely ZERO but I may be wrong.

[pavion]

Absolutely nothing. AI is not part of *A so don't count on anything.

[scooby5]

You'll get miles posted to KF...... in time, but other than that there is no benefit.

The only upside I have when flying with them is that their J is about the same price as SQ/LH Y on the same sector so i 'splurge' on Executive Class and then get all the benefit direct from AI.


With regards entry into *A I did hear a couple of weeks ago whilst there that LH had pulled out of 'negotiations' because they felt it was far too hard to get AI upto standard. Personally I don't find them so bad, service was fine but again that might be partly because i took J......which was definately worth it in comparison to SQ's Y only for the airport assistance i got in Mumbai from AI staff (tip: 1:40hr is not enough to transit there).


EDIT: One thing i forgot..... you'll need to keep all your boarding passes for claiming back your miles. The guys in India have no idea they even partner SQ so you'll need to submit directly. On the outbound flight from Singapore it's 50:50 on whether the miles are credited automatically.

[Gunners]

Thanks for advice I expecially in relation to claiming AI miles by keeping and remitting Boarding passes.

Any delay on entry to *A for AI puts 9W under a cloud with Kingfisher joining One World in June 2011. 9W has been hedging their bets between *A and ScaryTeam. There is some debate about the polictial will of the Indian government allowing 9W to join *A. 9W has a hub in BRU and has recently got into bed with AirItalia and Milan (maybe they are considering another European hub).

It will be interesting to see how the major alliances curve up the Indian airlines over the next 6 months.

Gunners

[scooby5]

9W gets a good reputation for service and more so that the Aunties on AI. If the timings of some of their flights can be improved by integration into an alliance then all the better.

By the way, AI doesn't partner Lufthansa......Jet does! So, whilst AI miles can be credited to KF the 9W miles can be credited to M&M. You'll maybe see here an insight into the background as to why LH aren't overly enthusiastic in aiding AI join the *A and their claim it will take too much effort to bring them up to par. If LH gets its way, 9W would more likely be the one joining *A but then, where does that leave the National Airline of India and all the inter-country politics that go with that?

[pavion]

Until February this year at least you could earn and redeem miles using LH M&M program