Club Vistara Double Dip – Unlock Incredible Value
Introduction
Club Vistara is the frequent flyer program of Air Vistara which is a full service carrier in India which is a JV between Tata and Singapore Airlines. Club Vistara has been regularly introducing offers in order to promote their airlines like Bonus points for 4 flights in a month, status match with other airlines etc. They are running two great promotions currently which can unlock incredible value with a stunning double dip opportunity. Let’s have a look at how do we plan to achieve this.
Upto 50% Bonus on Points Transfer
Vistara is currently running a promo which will allow you to earn a maximum of 25,000 bonus reward points on transferring reward points. It is a tiered benefit with the maximum tier having a bonus of around 50%. Check out the table below for full details
The bonus points will be posted within 45 working days of the base points being posted into your account
Upto 30% off on award redemptions
Vistara is offering around 30% discount on award flights on select sectors. While the entire network is not available the options are fairly decent. Check out the full list of flights eligible for the redemption sale here.
You need to redeem your flights and travel by the end of February 2020 which makes this a bit tight but if you have any upcoming travel plans this is a really great opportunity. If you are living in Mumbai, then take an off on 20th Feb to enjoy a 5 day long holiday from 19th to the 23rd.
Back of the envelope math
If you were to combine both these offers, it would unlock incredible value. Think of it in the following terms. If an award cost say 10,000 points originally, you can now redeem the award for 7,000 points (30% Discount). In addition you receive a transfer bonus of 50% on what you transfer. You effectively need only 4,667 points to generate 7,000 points. That’s an equivalent discount of 53.33% which is awesome. That’s effectively like doubling of your perceived value of club vistara points
Let’s be honest, the above argument is not a perfectly valid one. The reason for that is that the bonus points will be posted after 45 days whereas the redemption promo ends in February. On top of that, award redemptions do have taxes which need to be paid which distorts the math further. Let’s have a look at an actual example to evaluate savings.
Practical Example
Let’s take the Mumbai-Delhi Sector as an example. The standard awards require 5000 (Economy), 8500 (Premium Economy) and 18000 (Business) points respectively. The 30% reward promo brings down these values for certain eligible flights on this route to 3,500 (Economy), 5950 (Premium Economy) and 12600 (Business)
Let’s transfer 50,400 points from one of the eligible partners. While my preferred choice would be Diners Black where i have a huge stash of points, some of the best value can be generated out of Diners Club Miles as it transfers at a 1:1 ratio whereas the cash value of the points is only 0.5 Rs compared to 1 Rs for Diners Black. Anyway lets use Diners Black as the example of choice as its easier to compare the cash value of these points at 50,400 Rupees.
There are 3 eligible flights each way on the Mumbai to Delhi sector and the cost for purchasing round trip business class tickets on 19 to 23 Feb for 2 persons is approximately INR 93,000 and these are actually the eligible flights (UK 924 & UK 953 will give you the best time to spend in Delhi)
This gives an incredible redemption value of INR 1.85 per point. This is without even counting the maximum eligible 25,000 bonus points you will earn within 45 days. Even if there is no sale in the future, think of this as 5 free economy class tickets to most places in India including the Delhi to Mumbai or vice versa route.
Even at a conservative valuation of 4,000 Rupees per flight this is an additional bonus of INR 20,000 which leads to a total value of INR 113,000. The approximate taxes per Economy flight is around INR 676 and INR 2285 for Business as per ITA Matrix.
That reduces our total benefit to INR 100,480. For spending 50,400 Diners Black points which are worth INR 50,400 under normal flight redemption options, getting almost double value out of them is an incredible steal. Let’s not even talk about how these miles were generated in the first place. If you used 10x partners to generate these points, your total spend itself was around INR 150k. Benefits of 100k for Spends of 150k is like a 66% cash back which is just too insane. That would become an awesome triple dip. And if there is another award sale in the future, that would become a quadruple dip on your 25,000 miles promo balance.
Conclusion
While we may have got a bit carried away with an over the top redemption idea, this is not a bad way to spend your miles. The only problem is that this is a short window of opportunity available only for this month. If you dont have any travel plans, make them. What do you think of this promo?
4 Comments
D
Thanks a lot for this guide..very helpful
spedieduck
Thanks for your kind words
D
Please make an article on how to achieve vistara gold status also please
spedieduck
Its already in the works.. will be up soon