The all-new Club Vistara: New Platinum tier, increased points earnings, status matches and more

We at MAEM don't track Vistara as much as we probably ought to, mainly because we have limited access to and need for the airline - they don't fly to where we're primarily based (which is MAA). That said, the program interests us enough to write about it, and many of you are members of Club Vistara, Air Vistara's frequent flyer program. So we thought we'd write about several changes to this program, that were announced at a media event earlier today.

New Platinum tier, and easier tier upgrades now

There is now a new tier - Platinum - making it a total of four tiers (base, silver, gold and platinum). Moving from Gold to Platinum will require 35,000 points or 40 flights.

In addition, Club Vistara has revised their points requirements to upgrade to the next tier. Here's the revised requirements for moving up levels within the program.

• Base to Silver:        15,000 points   (used to be 25,000) or    20 flights
• Silver to Gold:        25,000 points   (used to be 50,000) or    30 flights
• Gold to Platinum:   35,000 points   or    40 flights.

Here's a summary of benefits across tiers.

Accelerated points earnings

Points earnings are based on spends with Air Vistara (read: ticket price), as opposed to distance flown. This is consistent with what most other airlines are doing or moving to, both globally and in India. However, Vistara has upped the earnings per Rs 100 spent, so here's what you'll earn now:

• Base: 8 points (up from 5)
• Silver: 9 points (up from 6)
• Gold: 10 points (up from 7)
• Platinum: 11 points

You can access the award chart here, and redemptions begin at 2,000 Club Vistara points. You can also upgrade to a higher class of service using Club Vistara points - refer chart here.

Status match

Today's announcement also includes an offer by Club Vistara to status-match to your existing status with other airlines' loyalty programs (likely restricted to Jet Airways' Jet Privilege, and Air India's Flying Returns). The matching will largely apply to Platinum and Gold levels (or equivalent) in other programs (presumably restricted to JP and FR), and you'll be matched to CV Gold, for 3 months.

Earning 6000 points or taking 6 flights with Vistara will extend the CV Gold status for 12 months. And if you don't, you'll get a soft-landing to CV Silver for 12 months.

Status matching will require information and evidence of your current status with another program. If you're interested, you can check out the status match offer here.

As a relatively new program, Vistara wants you to try them out first, before securing your business for the longer term, which explains the generous status match. What would have greatly upped the value of the status match, would have been a points match too, but I guess I'm expecting too much.

Upgrade vouchers and lounge access vouchers

Ajay (Live from a Lounge) reports here, from his conversation with Vistara's head of Sales & Marketing. Going by his post,

• there will now be upgrade vouchers available for Silver, Gold and Platinum levels, 
• vouchers for lounge access, and
• because of the revised requirements for reaching higher tiers, Vistara will be re-running members' travel data since inception, and give them retroactive credit for points earned to attain status. So if you've flown enough to be, say, a Gold member today, then you'll receive Gold status even if you don't have it currently.

Conclusion

If you have an hour or so to spare, you can watch this video of today's event.

And you can read about the new program and terms here.

With these changes, Club Vistara as a program seem to have become a much closer competitor to Jet Privilege and Flying Returns. In particular, I like In fact, I'd possibly put CV in second place, but their limited set of destinations within India is a sore point for me.