Award flight · one-way
The shortest corridor on the board and the cheapest award in the book: 3,000 Maharaja points to Dabolim after the April-2026 cut, ₹2,400 at house value on a route where cash swings from ₹2.5k in monsoon to ₹8k+ around New Year. That swing is the whole game — dead money in July, a steal in December. Aeroplan now prints a business row at 12,500, but 75 minutes on a narrowbody doesn't buy a J story. Book Maharaja for peak season or don't bother.
The play · economy
Which card mints this?
+7 more ways in — the full funnel, ratios and ₹/mile side by side →
One of your cards is in those 7 — see it in the funnel →
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air Canada Aeroplan the play | Air India nonstop (Star Alliance partner award) | 7,500 | — | ₹7,500 | the play |
| Air India Maharaja Points | Air India mainline nonstop to Dabolim (Star Alliance), Value tier — Air India Express and IndiGo fly it too | ~3,000 est. | — | ₹2,400 | 0.3× |
| IndiGo BluChip | IndiGo nonstop (Dabolim + Mopa) — BluChip, dynamic (revenue-priced) | ~7,000 est. | — | ₹3,500 | 0.5× |
The play · business
Which card mints this?
+7 more ways in — the full funnel, ratios and ₹/mile side by side →
One of your cards is in those 7 — see it in the funnel →
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air Canada Aeroplan the play | Air India nonstop (Star Alliance partner award) | 12,500 | — | ₹12,500 | the play |
All-in ₹ = points × the program's house value (valuation index) + the sourced one-way surcharge; a dash means the carrier doesn't publish it and the ranking counts it ₹0 — the row's note carries the caveat. That surcharge is the airline's own cash charge on an award — YQ, as the notes below call it — and it is not the fuel-surcharge waiver your credit card advertises: that one hands back a hundred rupees or two at a petrol pump, this one runs to tens of thousands and decides whether the award is worth taking at all. “Dynamic” and estimated (~… est.) rows never compete for the play — the crown is always a verified, bookable price. Feed-ins come from the same transfer data as the optimizer, multi-hop chains included.
Chart-priced, not live seats. These prices are read off each programme’s published award chart and valued at our own house ₹/point. 37% of the 39,855 priced options on the board are stated estimates for programmes that publish no chart; they are marked ~ est. and never crowned the play. Nobody here can see whether a seat exists on your date — confirm the space with the programme before you transfer. Points that leave your issuer do not come back.
The cash on top of the miles. Air India Maharaja Points makes you liable for one if the operating airline levies it, without saying whether it does. Air Canada Aeroplan states it adds none on its own metal. Government taxes and airport charges are payable in every case. Almost no programme publishes the amount, so the desk carries each one’s policy in its own words — on its programme hub — rather than a number nobody published. 1 other programme priced here publishes nothing the desk could read.
Air India Star Alliance
264 miles is deep in the 0–1,000-mile Within-Atlantic band — 7,500 points one-way to Goa. The single worst points-per-rupee redemption on the site: a ₹2,500 leisure hop costs 7,500 Aeroplan. Listed only so the chart is complete.
Feed it: 3,750 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 7,500 SBI Travel Credits (1:1) · 18,750 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:2)
Air India Star Alliance
Cut from 4,000 to 3,000 in April 2026; the chart's new domestic floor is 1,500 and Hyderabad–Goa (Mopa) fell to 2,500. Re-verified 2026-08-08 against the same source, which lists it among the Mumbai domestic cuts alongside Kolkata 6,000 → 5,000 and Amritsar 9,500 → 5,500 — still a single community datapoint, because Air India publishes no public chart page. Dabolim's own airport table confirms the mainline metal: Air India, Air India Express and IndiGo all fly Mumbai–Dabolim, and the chart row is the mainline one. ₹2,400 of points only beats cash in peak season.
Estimate Air India publishes no award chart. Its own Points Calculator states that “Fares indicated above are dependent on the time of booking and seat availability”, and Maharaja Club prices every award either as a Value fare (the discounted rate for booking well in advance) or as a higher Prime fare closer to departure. This number is the Value-fare floor as sampled after the April-2026 repricing — not a published chart cell: Value space is not always available on a given flight, and the same seat prices higher once it is gone. Pricing model re-verified against Air India’s Maharaja Club T&C and Points Calculator on 2026-08-09.
Feed it: 3,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 1,500 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 3,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
IndiGo
IndiGo serves both Goa airports from Mumbai, but BluChip prices off the live fare (dynamic ₹0.40–0.60 per BluChip, no chart) — so a New-Year hop costs triple a monsoon one in points too. On a route this seasonal, the revenue-priced "award" is just the expensive ticket wearing points.
Estimate IndiGo BluChip is revenue-linked ~Rs0.50/pt; ~= typical one-way IndiGo economy fare / Rs0.50 for ~264 mi - a rupee offset that moves 1:1 with the live fare. Own-metal only, no partners.
Feed it: 10,500 HSBC Reward Points (1.5:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL)) · 35,000 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:1) · 21,000 HDFC Reward Points (3:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL))
Air India Star Alliance
12,500 for the 0–1,000-mile band — Air India business to Goa exists on paper. Fixed and, but on a 75-minute hop the cabin is barely worth the walk to the front. Never fund this with Aeroplan.
Feed it: 6,250 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 12,500 SBI Travel Credits (1:1) · 31,250 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:2)
Or take the whole region: every corridor we price into South Asia — 380 of them. Or pick any two hubs — 2,450 corridors priced.