Rove Miles has really been on the rise lately, with the addition of new partners over the last couple of months and some solid transfer bonuses. However, arguably its greatest hidden superpower is in transfer partner Air India Maharaja Club. At least, that’s a theoretical superpower. That’s because Air India Maharaja Club offers some terrific pricing on short Star Alliance flights, particularly in economy class. That may be of limited use given how stingy United has become in terms of releasing award space to partners, but I have been finding some availability close to departure, and I think Air India Maharaja Club will come in handy for me sooner rather than later, particularly for positioning flights.
Distance-based United domestic awards via Air India Maharaja Club
Air India Maharaja Club does not publish an award chart, though it does have an award pricing calculator. You can use that calculator tool to find what the award price should be between two example airports when you can find availability.
As I started playing with the calculator, I realized a distance-based pattern. After a little more research, I found that Award Wallet had worked out an award chart for domestic routes on United Airlines, which works out as follows:
| Distance | Economy | Business (“First”) |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 600 miles flown | 3,500 points | 7,000 points |
| 600 to 1,000 miles flown | 5,500 points | 11,000 points |
| 1,000 to 1,500 miles flown | 7,500 points | 15,000 points |
| 1,500 to 4,000 miles flown | 13,500 points | 27,000 points |
| 4,000+ miles flown | 30,000 points | 60,000 points |
Note that the prices above are generally for nonstop flights. Connecting itineraries should price cumulatively (in other words, you would pay the rates above per segment). Award Wallet says that flying from an alternate airport in a hub city makes it possible to connect for the same price as nonstop from the hub (such as starting at New York Laguardia and connecting to get to a destination that is served nonstop from United hub Newark), but I had difficulty finding examples of that in practice.
Keep in mind that Rove Miles transfer to Air India Maharaja Club on a one-to-one basis, which means that just 3,500 Rove Miles can be enough for a United domestic economy class award.
Creating an Air India Maharaja Club account
Creating an Air India Maharaja Club frequent flyer account is relatively intuitive for anyone who has opened frequent flyer accounts with other airlines.
However, one thing that threw me for a few minutes was the fact that the nationality drop-down appeared to only show “Indian”. There was no way to scroll a list of nationalities.
I actually tried on multiple devices to see if I could scroll through a drop-down menu there before I realized that you can just click in that text field and delete the text that says “Indian”, then start typing “United States”, and it will populate for you.
After you enter your information, you have to confirm your email, and then you can log in. Somewhat strangely, Air India Maharaja Club uses two-factor authentication with a one-time passcode emailed to you rather than using a set account password. Then, after I was logged in, I had to verify my account with a text message code in order to search for award ticket availability. None of that was terribly difficult to figure out, apart from the nationality field above.
Air India Award price calculator
Air India Maharaja Club doesn’t publish an award chart, but they do have an award pricing calculator on the website that you can use to determine the expected cost of an award ticket. This calculator tool can tell you how many miles you can expect to need if you find award availability.
If the calculator thinks that the routing you have entered is not served by a partner airline, it will report no routes found.
Note that the calculator isn’t always correct. For example, in the screenshot above, it shows no routes found for Columbus CMH to Los Angeles LAX, even though that route is served by United Airlines. That said, for the most part, the calculator is a useful tool for determining award pricing on most routes.
How to search for an award ticket with Air India Maharaja Club
While results from the calculator look nice, they aren’t necessarily meaningful unless you can find award availability to match. Unfortunately, United has been weak in that department over the last couple of years as they release less and less availability to partner programs like Air India. The good news is that some flights do still get released for partner awards. I used the tool Seats.aero to look at United Airlines flights that were available to book via JetBlue TrueBlue (using the “Explore” feature for JetBlue TrueBlue and then filtering to flights operated by United but bookable with JetBlue points), under the assumption that those flights would likely also be available to other partner airlines.
Searching the Air India home page for an award is straightforward enough after you’ve logged in. You do need to select points from the dropdown menu on the right side, which is set to cash by default. If you don’t first select that you want to make a points booking, the tool will fail to find your desired airport code if it isn’t an airport served by Air India.
Once you select “points”, you can search for a route like Washington Dulles (IAD) to Buffalo, New York (BUF). You’ll see that when you find availability, that flight truly is available for just 3,500 miles one way.
That can be an incredible deal in the right circumstances. For instance, I took that screenshot for a same-day departure that would have cost nearly $400. And while that flight was available to other partners, it would cost more miles with any other partner. For some example comparison points, when I searched that route via Google Flights, web browser extension Points Path showed that this United flight would have cost 10,000 JetBlue TrueBlue points, just under 12,000 Avianca LifeMiles, or 15,000 United MileagePlus miles. Air India is a terrific bargain by comparison.
Air India does not show the taxes and fees unless you have the miles in your account to book an award, but according to Award Wallet, taxes and fees amount to about $18 each way for a domestic United award flight.
Fly United within the United States from 3,500 points one way
Air India Maharaja Club will be particularly handy for anyone who has a need to fly short or medium-haul United flights within the United States, such as for a positioning flight. That is because the shortest United Airlines flights cost just 3,500 Air India Maharaja Club poins one way. Medium-haul flights go up to 5,500 or 7,500 points each way, which can still be a terrific deal in the right circumstances.
For example, it is possible to fly a route like Salt Lake City to Los Angeles for as few as 3,500 Maharaja points one way.
In my own circumstances, I could position to Washington Dulles Airport (IAD) from my home airport of Albany, New York (ALB) for the same 3,500 miles one way.
Los Angeles to Salt Lake City stretches a span of about 590 miles flown and rings in at just 3,500 Air India Maharaja points one way.
Travel the west coast for 5,500 points or less
Stretching to the second distance band, Los Angeles to Seattle would cost just 5,500 miles one way for a journey that covers nearly 1,000 miles of flight distance.
I did indeed find that available for a number of flights in the near-term.
Again, that is significantly less than what you’ll pay per passenger when booking through other popular Star Alliance programs, as you can see here with Points Path.
Business class (or rather what United calls domestic “First” class) on the same route would theoretically cost only 11,000 points one-way if you can find availability.
Fly between Denver and Hawaii for 13,500 points each way
There are some good values to be found even at the middle-distance bands. Of particular note are routes between Hawaii and Denver, which cost just 13,500 points one way in economy class.
Once again, that is a fantastic deal as compared to what other programs charge for the same flight.
And that pricing isn’t only available to and from Honolulu; flights between Denver and Maui also cost just 13,500 Maharaja points each way.
Beware that the award calculator isn’t always right
Somewhat bizarrely, both the award calculator and the award search tool appear to have some glitches built in.
As shown in that screenshot in a previous section, the points calculator said that no route existed between Columbus, Ohio (CMH) and Los Angeles (LAX), but if you search for an award on that route from the Air India home page and United has released availability to partners, you’ll find that route rings in at 13,500 miles one way. While that’s not a compelling value, it is of note that the calculator said the route didn’t exist, but the award search tool clearly understands that it does.
There are also times when the award calculator is just clearly wrong. For instance, according to the calculator, Newark (EWR) to Indianapolis (IND) costs 3,500 points one way in economy class, despite the fact that it would represent more than 600 miles flown (which should bump it to the next distance band).
However, as the distance from Newark to Indianapolis is around 650 miles flown, that award actually costs 5,500 points one way.
As you can see, the award price above is correct as per the award chart worked out by Award Wallet and corroborated by plenty of search experience, despite what the calculator incorrectly displayed.
Things get strange when you extend beyond the United States. For instance, a flight from Newark (EWR) to San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU) should cost 27,500 points as per the award calculator. That’s significantly more than it would cost based on the domestic business class model described in this post, despite San Juan being a domestic destination.
But when I really ran that search on a date that was available to other airline partners, Air India’s pricing was… significantly higher.
Similarly, flights from Honolulu to Guam do not price as per the domestic pricing (the Island Hopper is a bucket list flight for me, so I’m always keeping an eye out for opportunities to book it with miles). Saipan to/from Guam isn’t unreasonable at 7,500 points one way, but it doesn’t price according to the distance-based domestic chart (which would make the short 45-minute flight cost just 3,500 points one way if it followed the same chart).
There are some great values to be had when flying Air India
Very recently, Air India launched something of a revaluation of its points, with reductions in award pricing for economy class awards on many Air India routes. Keep in mind that pricing on Air India metal is variable, but there are situations where you can get great deals.
Overall, I found a solid analysis of this on an Indian blog called The Double Dip, which dug into many example routings for Air India flights. Since our audience is mostly US-based, I won’t get into those routings very extensively. You should see the Double Dip post for more information about these.
To share one example that seems like a highlight for economy class travelers, Delhi to Bali for 12,000 Maharaja points one way in economy class seems like a terrific deal that is far fewer points than what you’d pay for that award through any other program to my knowledge (and 50K for business class also beats other programs for that route nonstop).
Again, I didn’t dig too deeply into award pricing for Air India flights originating in India, but if that would fit your travel patterns, it’s worth checking out that post from The Double Dip.
Bottom line
Air India Maharaja Club offers excellent pricing for short and medium-distance United Airlines award tickets. Rove Miles is the only US-based major transferable points currency offering transfers to Air India Maharaja Club. Given the sometimes compelling multiples of miles that Rove users can earn on hotel bookings and some shopping portal opportunities, many readers can probably earn enough miles for short domestic United flights without much difficulty. Finding availability can be a bit more difficult, but if the United flight you want is available to other United partners, it is likely to be bookable through Air India Mahraja Club. That’s certainly an opportunity I’ll be keeping in mind in the future for my Rove Miles.
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Don’t be surprised if hotel bookings on Rove are more expensive than on other platforms. The extra points are great but each person needs to determine their effective purchase rate of those extra points.
And, as we all know, don’t count on partner inventory for United premium cabins.
Have you managed to book any of these ?
Air India tells me they fully activate the account only after 2 flights on Air India. I have a boatload of points stuck that I can’t use
It lets you go all the way to payment screen and then gives an error that payment failed . Even after a lot back and forth on phone and email with them they said that’s their policy