Award flight · one-way
Mumbai → Malé on points: 9 options, the board now symmetric with Malé → Mumbai. Award charts price the zone pair or the distance band, not the direction, so every program that prices the reverse heading is mirrored here — a mirror still flagged as an estimate never takes the crown. The cheapest verified business seat on the board is 30,000 via American Airlines AAdvantage, and economy starts at 16,500 — Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) holds the 32,500 business fallback. 5 rows are first-hand chart reads, the AAdvantage cells re-read off aa.com's live calculator 2026-08-06.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) the play | SriLankan via CMB (one stop, oneworld) — Avios partner chart, per-segment | 16,500 | — | ₹16,500 | the play |
| IndiGo BluChip | IndiGo nonstop — BluChip, dynamic (revenue-priced) | ~14,000 est. | — | ₹7,000 | 0.4× |
| Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards | SriLankan Airlines via CMB (oneworld partner award), India→a South-Asia neighbour — Alaska Atmos | ~7,500 est. | — | ₹7,500 | 0.5× |
| Air India Maharaja Points | Air India's Malé flying is Delhi-only — no Mumbai–Malé at all, and Delhi–Malé is cancelled 1-Jun–31-Aug-2026, resuming 1-Sep-2026, so connect via DEL, region award | ~10,000 est. | — | ₹8,000 | 0.5× |
| American Airlines AAdvantage | oneworld partner metal, AAdvantage region award — or SriLankan Airlines via CMB | 17,500 | — | ₹17,500 | 1.1× |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines AAdvantage the play | oneworld partner metal, AAdvantage region award — or SriLankan Airlines via CMB | 30,000 | — | ₹30,000 | the play |
| Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards | SriLankan Airlines via CMB (oneworld partner award), India→a South-Asia neighbour — Alaska Atmos | ~15,000 est. | — | ₹15,000 | 0.5× |
| Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) | SriLankan business via CMB (one stop, oneworld) — Avios partner chart, per-segment | 32,500 | — | ₹32,500 | 1.1× |
The play · first
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines AAdvantage the play | AAdvantage region-chart first cell — no oneworld carrier flies a first cabin on this route (SriLankan's top cabin is business); the cell prices, the seat does not fly. Chart completeness only. | 40,000 | — | ₹40,000 | 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. Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) states that a carrier-imposed surcharge is charged on an award. Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards, Air India Maharaja Points and American Airlines AAdvantage make you liable for one if the operating airline levies it, without saying whether it does. 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.
Open this corridor in British Airways’ Flight Finder → It fills in your search — BOM to MLE on 29/12/2026, which you change there. It does not show award space, and no link on this page can. It is the only carrier handoff the desk ships: Qatar returns CASH fares under award-looking parameters, Aeroplan discards them behind a login, KrisFlyer’s search has no URL to link to, and the Flying Blue template in circulation has never been verified.
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
BOM–CMB at 948 mi is Zone 2 (10,000) and CMB–MLE at 483 mi is Zone 1 (6,500) — 16,500 Avios with a Colombo connection. Maharaja's 10,000 nonstop beats it in economy; this row is here because the business sum below gives the corridor its first published J price.
Feed it: 16,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 33,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 16,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
IndiGo
IndiGo flies BOM–MLE several times daily, but BluChip prices every seat off the live fare (~₹0.40–0.80/point) — no chart, no plan. On a leisure route where cash swings from ₹8k to ₹30k by season, the honest move is to price the ticket and pay cash unless a balance is about to expire.
Estimate IndiGo BluChip is revenue-linked ~Rs0.50/pt; ~= typical one-way IndiGo economy fare / Rs0.50 for ~1,029 mi - a rupee offset that moves 1:1 with the live fare. Own-metal only, no partners.
Feed it: 21,000 HSBC Reward Points (1.5:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL)) · 70,000 Axis EDGE Reward Points (5:1) · 42,000 HDFC Reward Points (3:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL))
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
No Atmos partner flies BOM-MLE nonstop, so the 1,030-mile great circle never reaches the chart. Alaska bands what you actually fly: SriLankan Airlines via CMB is ~1,431 flown miles — the Asia-Pacific chart's sub-1,500-mile band, 7,500 economy / 15,000 business one-way, plus the $20 partner booking fee per person each way (up from $12.50 on 1-Jul-2026). One-way.
Estimate Priced at the flown-routing distance, not the nonstop great circle: SriLankan Airlines via CMB = ~1,431 mi summed great-circle (1.39x the 1,030-mi nonstop), which reads the Atmos Asia-Pacific partner chart's sub-1,500-mile band (7,500 economy / 15,000 business one-way). Atmos prices partner awards on total distance flown; the exact routing Alaska sells on this pair is not calculator-verified (alaskaair.com blocks automated reads).
Feed it: 22,500 Amex Membership Rewards (3:1 via Marriott Bonvoy) · 45,000 RBL Reward Points (6:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) · 15,000 RBL Reward Points (Nova/Lumière) (2:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy)
Air India Star Alliance
Air India’s April-2026 region-tier award — the tier price covers the whole mainline award including a domestic feeder, not a leg-sum. Mirrored from mle-bom: the chart cell is the same in either direction, so 10,000 is the mle-bom number read back the other way — an estimate until this direction is re-read, and never crowned THE PLAY.
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. This direction is additionally mirrored from the reverse corridor — Maharaja prices the zone pair, not the direction of travel — and has not been sampled separately.
Feed it: 10,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 5,000 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 10,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
AAdvantage prices partner awards on a fixed region-to-region chart. First is the chart’s top cabin for this region pair, so the cell is easier to read than to book wherever no oneworld carrier flies a first cabin on the sector. That region-to-region cell is the PAIR, not the direction: every Indian-Subcontinent cell reads identically from either origin chart, so this heading has one published number.
Feed it: 52,500 Amex Membership Rewards (3:1 via Marriott Bonvoy) · 105,000 RBL Reward Points (6:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) · 35,000 RBL Reward Points (Nova/Lumière) (2:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy)
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
AAdvantage prices partner awards on a fixed region-to-region chart. First is the chart’s top cabin for this region pair, so the cell is easier to read than to book wherever no oneworld carrier flies a first cabin on the sector. That region-to-region cell is the PAIR, not the direction: every Indian-Subcontinent cell reads identically from either origin chart, so this heading has one published number.
Feed it: 90,000 Amex Membership Rewards (3:1 via Marriott Bonvoy) · 180,000 RBL Reward Points (6:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) · 60,000 RBL Reward Points (Nova/Lumière) (2:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy)
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
No Atmos partner flies BOM-MLE nonstop, so the 1,030-mile great circle never reaches the chart. Alaska bands what you actually fly: SriLankan Airlines via CMB is ~1,431 flown miles — the Asia-Pacific chart's sub-1,500-mile band, 7,500 economy / 15,000 business one-way, plus the $20 partner booking fee per person each way (up from $12.50 on 1-Jul-2026). One-way.
Estimate Priced at the flown-routing distance, not the nonstop great circle: SriLankan Airlines via CMB = ~1,431 mi summed great-circle (1.39x the 1,030-mi nonstop), which reads the Atmos Asia-Pacific partner chart's sub-1,500-mile band (7,500 economy / 15,000 business one-way). Atmos prices partner awards on total distance flown; the exact routing Alaska sells on this pair is not calculator-verified (alaskaair.com blocks automated reads).
Feed it: 45,000 Amex Membership Rewards (3:1 via Marriott Bonvoy) · 90,000 RBL Reward Points (6:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) · 30,000 RBL Reward Points (Nova/Lumière) (2:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy)
SriLankan Airlines oneworld
18,500 (BOM–CMB, Zone 2) + 14,000 (CMB–MLE, Zone 1) = 32,500 Avios — the ONLY published business price on the honeymoon corridor, full stop. Nobody prints a nonstop J number here; UL via Colombo does it for the price of a detour and six issuers feed the currency. The "no premium-cabin story" line in this corridor's take is now stale.
Feed it: 32,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 65,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 32,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
oneworld
AAdvantage prices partner awards on a fixed region-to-region chart. First is the chart’s top cabin for this region pair, so the cell is easier to read than to book wherever no oneworld carrier flies a first cabin on the sector. That region-to-region cell is the PAIR, not the direction: every Indian-Subcontinent cell reads identically from either origin chart, so this heading has one published number.
Feed it: 120,000 Amex Membership Rewards (3:1 via Marriott Bonvoy) · 240,000 RBL Reward Points (6:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy) · 80,000 RBL Reward Points (Nova/Lumière) (2:1 via Club ITC → Marriott Bonvoy)
Flying back? Malé to Mumbai on points (MLE–BOM). Or take the whole region: every corridor we price into South Asia — 380 of them. Or pick any two hubs — 2,450 corridors priced.