Award route card · one-way
Two published charts, one clean verdict. Thai's zone chart files Colombo with India — 27,500 miles one-way in Royal Silk to its own hub — but SriLankan's nonstop sits in the Avios 1,151–2,000-mile band at 24,500 business and 12,500 economy, undercutting Thai in both cabins. KrisFlyer technically gets you there via Singapore, but that's a two-award backtrack with no published through-price, so it doesn't make the board. Neither does Air India (no Colombo-origin chart) nor Asia Miles (no partner chart at all).
The play · business
Feed it: 24,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 49,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 24,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) | SriLankan nonstop (oneworld), partner distance band | 24,500 | — | ₹24,500 | the play |
| Thai Royal Orchid Plus | Thai Airways nonstop (Star Alliance), Royal Silk | 27,500 | — | ₹27,500 | 1.1× |
The play · economy
Feed it: 12,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 25,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 12,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avios (BA / Qatar / Finnair) | SriLankan nonstop (oneworld), partner distance band | 12,500 | — | ₹12,500 | the play |
| Thai Royal Orchid Plus | Thai Airways nonstop (Star Alliance), zone chart | 17,500 | — | ₹17,500 | 1.4× |
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. “Dynamic” rows never compete for the play. Feed-ins come from the same transfer data as the optimizer, multi-hop chains included.
24,500 Avios (was 22,000 before 15-Dec-2025) for UL business nonstop — 3,000 under Thai's own-metal price for the same corridor, from a currency six Indian issuers feed. The quiet win of the Colombo set.
Feed it: 24,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 49,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 24,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
Same 27,500-mile Royal Silk price Delhi pays — the India zone extends to Colombo. HDFC (2:1), Axis (1:2), HSBC and SBI (1:1) feed ROP; mind the hard 3-year expiry, and note UL via Avios does the same corridor up front for 3,000 fewer points.
Feed it: 13,750 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 27,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1) · 27,500 SBI Travel Credits (1:1)
Same 1,151–2,000-mile band as Colombo–Singapore: 12,500 Avios one-way post-Dec-2025. Cheapest published seat on the corridor — though ex-CMB cash fares to Bangkok are budget-airline cheap, so run the arithmetic.
Feed it: 12,500 HDFC Reward Points (1:1) · 25,000 Amex Membership Rewards (2:1) · 12,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1)
Thai's direct-flight chart groups Colombo with India and Nepal: 17,500 miles one-way. At this corridor's cash fares that's thin value — the Royal Silk row below is where the chart earns its keep, and even that loses to Avios here.
Feed it: 8,750 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 17,500 HSBC Reward Points (1:1) · 17,500 SBI Travel Credits (1:1)