Economy the play 7,500 pts Air India mainline nonstop (Star Alliance), Aeroplan distance-band award (622 km)
Air India Star Alliance
The metal is settled on both airport tables: Air India flies Mumbai–Hyderabad on MAINLINE metal, the only Star Alliance operator on the pair, so this band reads the direct great circle and assumes no via-hub detour. Aeroplan prices Star partner awards by total distance FLOWN — only a CA$39 partner booking fee plus taxes. A connecting routing that flies farther lands in the next band up.
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 mainline nonstop (Star Alliance), Value tier
Air India Star Alliance
The estimate was right to the point, and it is an estimate no longer. The full April-2026 domestic economy table prints "BOM,HYD, old 4,000, new 3,500–7,500" — a 12.5% cut, Value cell 3,500, which is precisely where the desk had pinned it off the distance bracket. The partial tables that skip this pair are why the row waited. Now verified, it is the best value on the board by a distance and free to take the crown — ₹2,800 at the ₹0.80 house value against Aeroplan's ₹7,500 for the same mainline seat.
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: 3,500 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 1,750 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 3,500 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
IndiGo nonstop — BluChip, dynamic (revenue-priced)
IndiGo
IndiGo owns the frequency on Mumbai–Hyderabad — settled 2026-08-08, and worth spelling out because the two airport tables disagree. Mumbai's own table lists Hyderabad under IndiGo, Hyderabad's IndiGo row lists only Mumbai–Navi, and the tie breaks against Hyderabad: IndiGo's own Mumbai-to-Hyderabad booking page is live and route trackers count over a dozen 6E departures a day on the pair. But BluChip has no award chart — redemptions track the live fare at a dynamic ₹0.40–0.60 per BluChip, minimum 500, taxes and convenience fees cash-only. A rupee offset in points clothing; useful only to bleed an expiring balance onto a fare you were paying anyway.
Estimate IndiGo BluChip is a revenue-linked rupee offset worth ~Rs0.50/BluChip (Card Insider pegs Rs0.40-0.60, 500 minimum); 7,500 ~= a typical Rs3,750 one-way BOM-HYD economy fare divided by Rs0.50, which is where the live quotes sat when this was priced. It moves 1:1 with the live fare and has no chart.
Feed it: 11,250 HSBC Reward Points (1.5:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL)) · 37,500 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:1) · 22,500 HDFC Reward Points (3:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL))
Business the play 12,500 pts Air India mainline nonstop (Star Alliance), Aeroplan distance-band award (622 km)
Air India Star Alliance
The metal is settled on both airport tables: Air India flies Mumbai–Hyderabad on MAINLINE metal, the only Star Alliance operator on the pair, so this band reads the direct great circle and assumes no via-hub detour. Aeroplan prices Star partner awards by total distance FLOWN — only a CA$39 partner booking fee plus taxes. A connecting routing that flies farther lands in the next band up.
Feed it: 6,250 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 12,500 SBI Travel Credits (1:1) · 31,250 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:2)
Business ~14,000 pts est. Air India mainline nonstop (Star Alliance), Value tier
Air India Star Alliance
CORRECTED 2026-08-08 from 16,000. The full April-2026 domestic business table prints "BOM,HYD, old 17,000, new 14,000–16,000" — a 17.6% cut whose Value cell is 14,000. The partial trade-press table this row previously cited reported the pair as "21,000 → 16,000", reproducing the band's CEILING as the new price; the same publication did it to Delhi–Kolkata (28,000 for a 22,000 cell) and to Bengaluru–Hyderabad, so the desk now reads the complete pull and nothing else. The seat is real: both airport tables put Air India MAINLINE on Mumbai–Hyderabad, and its domestic narrowbodies carry a proper business recliner. At the corrected number the corridor changes hands — ₹11,200 at the ₹0.80 house value against Aeroplan's 12,500 points at ₹1.00, so the house chart now wins the front cabin it used to lose.
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: 14,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 7,000 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 14,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
First the play 25,000 pts Air India mainline nonstop (Star Alliance), Aeroplan distance-band award (622 km)
Air India Star Alliance
Chart completeness, not a booking: Air India runs Mumbai–Hyderabad on narrowbody metal, so the front cabin is a business recliner and no first cabin flies the pair at all. The cell is real — Aeroplan's Within-Atlantic 0–1,000-mile band prints a First column — but there is nothing on the aircraft to redeem into.
Feed it: 12,500 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 25,000 SBI Travel Credits (1:1) · 62,500 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:2)