Get a manicure and earn free air tickets

Mumbai: India's flyers are increasingly discovering that they don't have to zip across the skies to earn miles on their frequent-flyer cards. A host of closer-to-ground purchases can earn them the miles, like booking hotel rooms, renting cars or DVDs, eating out, shopping, subscribing to magazines, paying via credit card, getting a manicure, and so on.
These miles can then be used to buy air tickets or avail of more products and services.
A few years ago, frequent-flyer programmes began donning a new avatar, with mileage points becoming veritable currency for flyers to use to buy mobile phones or LED televisions, or even book holidays. More interestingly, to fatten their mileage cards, flyers today no longer need to flit across airports like Ryan Bingham, the frequent flyer in Hollywood's Up in the Air. A Gujarati thali at a certain restaurant can do just that.
Manoj Chacko, executive vice-president, commercial, of Kingfisher Airlines says the Indian market already has its share of "mile junkies".
The trend took off about three years ago, when, aping their foreign counterparts, airlines in India ambitiously started including a number of non-aviation companies - like hotels and retailers - in their frequent-flyer programmes. For instance, a restaurant that has tied up with an airline pays it hard cash and buys mileage points. The restaurant then gives these points to its customers, who can redeem them with the same airline by buying free tickets or even goods like mobile phones, TV sets and so on.
Kingfisher and American Express have a co-branded credit card and all the spending done on that card is converted to miles.
25/09/11 Manju V/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Sep 2011, Kingfisher Sep 2011