Award flight · one-way
A trunk Air India flies and does not price. The full April-2026 Maharaja pull covers every domestic cell off the airline's own points calculator, and Mumbai–Lucknow is not in it, in any cabin — checked 2026-08-08 against all four tables. That is a genuine absence, not a partial listing: Mumbai's own row in the same chart carries twenty-six other cities. So the house row here is an estimate, pinned tight at 5,000 by the two verified Mumbai cells that bracket it within 65 km, and it never takes the crown. Aeroplan does: 735 great-circle miles sit comfortably inside the cheapest Within-Atlantic band, so Air Canada sells Air India's own mainline seat for a fixed 7,500 in economy and 12,500 up front, surcharge-free. On a corridor where the house chart declines to quote, the Canadian one is the only published price — and up front it is the only price at all. 4 options, 2 of them first-hand chart reads.
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 mainline nonstop (Star Alliance partner award) | 7,500 | — | ₹7,500 | the play |
| Air India Maharaja Points | Air India mainline nonstop, plus Air India Express on the same pair — IX sells economy only (no business cabin) | ~5,000 est. | — | ₹4,000 | 0.5× |
| IndiGo BluChip | IndiGo nonstop — BluChip, dynamic (revenue-priced) | ~10,000 est. | — | ₹5,000 | 0.7× |
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 mainline 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.
Air India Star Alliance
735 great-circle miles sit well inside the 0–1,000-mile Within-Atlantic band — 7,500 points, no fuel or carrier surcharge, only a CA$39 partner booking fee plus taxes. ₹7,500 of points against ₹4–7k cash makes it a completeness row on the numbers, but it is the only PUBLISHED price on a pair Air India's own chart skips, so it takes the crown by default.
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 IndiaAir India Express
An estimate on a corridor Air India plainly flies. Mumbai's own operator table lists Lucknow under BOTH Air India mainline and Air India Express; Delhi's lists Lucknow under mainline too. Lucknow's own table is the outlier — it carries nine airlines and no Air India row at all, and it also omits the Mumbai service its own Express row should show, so the desk reads it as stale rather than as a retreat and settles the metal on the two hub tables that agree. Air India levies no carrier-imposed fuel surcharge on its own metal; taxes and passenger service fees are cash on top. Estimated rows never take the crown here.
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: 5,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 2,500 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 5,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
IndiGo
IndiGo owns the frequency Mumbai–Lucknow, but BluChip has no award chart — redemptions track the live fare at ₹0.40–0.60 per BluChip, minimum 500, taxes and convenience fees cash-only. Nothing to plan around; useful only to bleed an expiring balance onto a fare you would have paid anyway.
Estimate IndiGo BluChip is revenue-linked ~Rs0.50/pt; 10,000 ~= a typical Rs5,000 one-way BOM-LKO economy fare divided by Rs0.50 - a rupee offset that moves 1:1 with the live fare. Own-metal only, no partners, no chart.
Feed it: 15,000 HSBC Reward Points (1.5:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL)) · 50,000 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:1) · 30,000 HDFC Reward Points (3:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL))
Air India Star Alliance
12,500 in the 0–1,000-mile band for Air India's domestic business recliner — fixed, surcharge-free, chain-funded HDFC 2:1 / Bonvoy 3:1. The rare case where the partner chart is not merely cheaper than the house one but the only one that exists: Maharaja publishes no Mumbai–Lucknow price in any cabin, so there is nothing to compare it against.
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 — 360 of them. Or pick any two hubs — 2,430 corridors priced.