Award route card · one-way
The corridor that exposes what "domestic points" actually mean in India: mostly nothing you can plan. IndiGo BluChip and SpiceJet SpiceClub price redemptions dynamically off the cash fare — no chart, roughly ₹0.40–0.80 a point — so the "award" is just the ticket you'd have bought. Air India Maharaja is the lone fixed chart: 5,000 points DEL–BOM in economy (unchanged in April 2026), 20,000 in business (cut 13%). At ₹0.80 a point that's ₹4,000 for the economy seat against ₹4–7k cash — a real floor, when Value space shows. Business for a 2-hour hop is a points-dump; economy is the only honest buy.
The play · business
Feed it: 20,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 10,000 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 20,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air India Maharaja Points | Air India nonstop (Star Alliance), Value tier | 20,000 | — | ₹16,000 | the play |
The play · economy
Feed it: 5,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 2,500 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 5,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
| Program | Metal / routing | Points | Surcharge | All-in ₹ | vs play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air India Maharaja Points | Air India nonstop (Star Alliance), Value tier | 5,000 | — | ₹4,000 | the play |
| IndiGo BluChip | IndiGo nonstop — BluChip, dynamic (revenue-priced) | dynamic | — | — | — |
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.
Cut 13% to 20,000 in April 2026 (was 23,000) — ₹16,000 of points for two hours in a domestic recliner. The chart rewards the front of the plane on long-haul, not here; burn economy and save the balance for the A350.
Feed it: 20,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 10,000 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 20,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
DEL–BOM held at 5,000 points in the April-2026 overhaul (domestic economy now starts at 1,500). ₹4,000 at house value against ₹4–7k cash fares — genuine value on the Value-tier awards, though metro trunks like this rarely dip to the 1,500 floor. Six issuers feed Maharaja at 1:1 or better.
Feed it: 5,000 IndusInd Reward Points (1:1) · 2,500 Axis EDGE Miles (1:2) · 5,000 ICICI Reward Points (1:1)
BluChip has no award chart — redemptions track the live fare at roughly ₹0.40–0.80 per point, so a Diwali DEL–BOM costs multiples of a mid-July one. There is nothing to plan around: the "award" is the cash ticket in points clothing. Useful only to dump an expiring balance onto a fare you'd have paid anyway.
Ways in: HSBC Reward Points 1.5:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL) · Axis EDGE Reward Points 5:1 · HDFC Reward Points 3:1 via Accor Live Limitless (ALL)