Air India offers to revive expired miles...but there's a catch

I don't mind flying Air India occasionally, particularly in business class, though their economy class product is pretty decent as well. And while some of their grumpy cabin crew should've retired in the 1990s, Air India has actually done a little bit to improve their image.

That said, let's be honest ... Air India's Flying Returns program isn't my favourite loyalty program. From being possibly the best mileage-earning credit cards around when they launched in 2013, the AI-SBI co-branded credit card has lost pretty much all of its sheen now. This, after a massive devaluation in February 2016, which resulted in significant increase in miles required for Star Alliance awards, and the gutting of some great bonus miles earning opportunities on the credit card.

That said, here's a small attempt at redemption by Air India, who're offering opportunity to revive miles that have expired (normally, unused miles expire 36 months after they're earned). But there's a catch, which is a cost per mile revived. Here's more.

So here's the offer - you can revive miles that have expired in earlier years, going as far back as 2008. Note that there was no miles expiry in 2011 due to a special dispensation they made in that year. However, these come at a cost - Rs 0.60 per mile revived. [Note, that AI's Flying Returns program policy currently allows a 3-month extension for recently expired miles at a cost of Rs 0.60 per mile.]

The revived miles will be valid for 6 months from the date of revival, or 31 March 2017, whichever is earlier. Award tickets can booked using those revived miles for travel up to 1 year from the date of booking the award (eg, if you booked your award ticket on 17 February 2017, the travel date can be up to 17 February 2018). 

Air India has started trying to be cute lately, using comic-type images (called Air India Fables) for its promotions and offers. Here's the one for this offer to revive expired miles.

The interesting thing about the covering email that came with this offer, was that the offer is being made in the first place because some senior functionaries at Air India received requests for extension of miles validity.

Now, we all can hazard a guess on what kind of folks are making such requests, and what type of folks are classified as senior functionaries. So correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Air India supposed to avoid exactly this - bureaucratic influence - in order to turn around? Looks like that's not on their mind as of now.

You can read about the entire promotion (including how to revive miles) on the Flying Returns home page as a popup, or click to expand the image below.

Should you take up AI's offer on this promotion?

I think it is actually quite generous of Air India to offer miles that expired up to 8 years ago - going back to 2008 - to be revived. I'm sure many folks out there are regretting the miles they've lost out over the years due to expiry. In that context, I think this is actually pretty good.

However, I find the cost of Rs 0.60 per mile (about 1 US penny) to be quite high a price. For instance, a one-way business class award ticket on Air India from Mumbai to New York costs 160,000 AI FR miles plus taxes.

If one were to revive expired miles for this ticket, the cost of such revival itself would be Rs 96,000. Plus there will be taxes, fees and surcharges of around Rs 25,000, making it a total cost of at least Rs 120,000. There are paid one-way tickets (albeit on airlines such as EgyptAir and Kuwait Airways) at sub-Rs 100,000 fares, and Air India itself at about Rs 145,000 in November 2016.

The situation is even more dismal in economy class, where reviving 80,000 miles will cost Rs 48,000, which is far more than a paid economy class ticket (including on Air India itself, which is in the Rs 35,000 range).

Conclusion

Late in 2015, Air India also introduced a Know Your Customer (KYC) verification process to weed out duplicate accounts which I reckon to be a huge issue for them. I've had terrible luck with getting my KYC completed (because I had more than 1 account, it would seem) even after writing to them a grand total of 9 times. So I've decided to give up on that process, and let about 10,000 AI miles expire. I know that's some sort of travesty in this hobby, but I'd rather lose those miles than spend any more time trying to reach Air India.

That said, the way I see this particular offer, you stand to get some small savings in premium cabins only, and that is if you don't mind the excessively high cash cost to revive expired miles. That might work for some, but not the majority, I'm guessing. The only other place this might come in handy is when you can get the 40% discount for award travel on specific days (Monday through Thursday), that Air India is currently offering, till 28 September 2016.

Readers: What  do you think? Does this offer from Air India to revive miles at Rs 0.60 per mile interest you? Are you planning any revival of expired miles under this offer? Do let us know in the comments below.