Air India Maharaja Club 2026: The Big Revaluation, the Vistara Merger, and What It Means for Your Points

Air India's loyalty programme has changed more in the last two years than in the previous twenty. The airline rebuilt its legacy Flying Returns scheme around spend-based earning, absorbed Vistara's 4.5 million-member Club Vistara programme after the November 2024 merger, rebranded the whole thing as Maharaja Club, and then — on 1 April 2026 — pushed through a sweeping award-chart revaluation that cut most economy redemption prices while quietly raising others. If you fly Air India, hold a Vistara co-branded card, or transfer credit card points to airline miles, all of this matters. This guide is the plain-English version: what changed, who won, who lost, and how to actually get value out of Maharaja Points in 2026.

The short version

If you read nothing else, here is where things stand:

• One programme, one currency. Flying Returns and Club Vistara are gone. There is now a single programme — Maharaja Club — earning a single currency, Maharaja Points, under one Maharaja Club ID.
• Earning is spend-based. You earn on what you spend on Air India flights, not on distance flown — from 6 Maharaja Points per ₹100 at the base tier, scaling up to 10 per ₹100 at the top tier.
• Four tiers: Red (base), Silver, Gold, Platinum — and from April 2026, qualifying for status got faster.
• The 1 April 2026 revaluation was mixed, not a blanket devaluation. Economy got cheaper on most routes; premium economy and first class got more expensive on many; business class was genuinely split. Air India has not said whether pricing is fixed-band or demand-sensitive, and we could not establish it.
• The best value is in premium cabins on Star Alliance partners. Air India is a Star Alliance member, and that network — not domestic economy — is where Maharaja Points shine.
• Your credit card still feeds the programme — but only by transfer. There is no co-branded card you can apply for that earns Maharaja Points directly: SBI's two Air India co-brands have been shut to new applicants since 10 October 2024, and the old Vistara co-brands were wound down after the merger. Transferring bank reward points in is the whole of the story now.

The rest of this guide unpacks each of these.

From Flying Returns to Maharaja Club: how we got here

Air India's old programme, Flying Returns, had barely changed in over a decade. In April 2024 the airline gave it its first real overhaul, moving away from the legacy distance-based model — where you earned according to how far you flew — to a spend-based model, where you earn according to how much you pay. That is the same direction most large global programmes have taken, and it rewards full-fare and premium-cabin flyers over those chasing cheap long-haul economy tickets.

Then came the bigger event. The Air India–Vistara merger completed on 12 November 2024, folding Tata's full-service joint venture with Singapore Airlines into Air India. With it came Vistara's loyalty programme, Club Vistara — widely regarded as one of the better-run frequent-flyer schemes in India — and its roughly 4.5 million members.

Rather than keep two programmes, Air India unified them under a new brand: Maharaja Club. The currency is Maharaja Points, and every member now carries a Maharaja Club ID. Both legacy names — Flying Returns and Club Vistara — have been retired.

If you were a Club Vistara member

The migration was, by loyalty-programme standards, handled cleanly. If you came across from Club Vistara:

• Your CV Points converted to Maharaja Points at 1:1. No haircut on the balance.
• Your status (tier) points also carried over at 1:1, and Air India evaluated your tier on the combined points of both programmes — so you kept the higher of the two tiers, and some members were bumped up.
• Tier mapping was like-for-like: CV Base → Maharaja Red, Silver → Silver, Gold → Gold, Platinum → Platinum.
• Points validity was extended by at least a year, including for balances that were close to expiring at the time of the move.

The honest caveat for ex-Vistara loyalists is not about the points — it is about the cards. Club Vistara's value for many people lived in the co-branded credit cards and their annual free-ticket vouchers, and those were treated very differently from the points. More on that below.

The 1 April 2026 revaluation: winners and losers

This is the change most flyers are searching for, and it is widely misreported as a simple "devaluation." It was not. It was a mixed revaluation, rolling out from 1 April 2026, and whether you came out ahead depends almost entirely on the cabin you redeem in.

Economy — cheaper, broadly. This is the headline: Air India's own published figure is that domestic award fares are around 25% lower on average, with select routes cut by up to 60% and international redemption levels standardised by region. The widely quoted "30% on average, across 80% of domestic and 75% of international routes" is not Air India's figure, and we could not source it to the airline. Domestic award flights now start from 1,500 Maharaja Points, and select routes saw cuts far deeper than the average. For the typical member redeeming economy seats, this revaluation was good news.

Premium economy — quietly more expensive. This is the part that does not make the press release. A large share of premium-economy routes went up in price, by a meaningful margin on average. If premium economy is your sweet spot, your points buy less than they did before April 2026.

Business class — genuinely mixed. Business saw a roughly even split: many routes got cheaper, a substantial minority got more expensive. You cannot generalise — you have to price your specific route both ways.

First class — mostly more expensive. The majority of first-class routes rose in price, several of them steeply. First-class aspirational redemptions took the hardest hit.

Two structural points matter alongside the numbers:

1. Whether pricing is fixed-band or demand-sensitive is unresolved, and we are not going to guess. Air India has not stated which it is, and we have not been able to establish it. What the airline does say is that redemption levels came down and that the lowest levels are now available more frequently, including up to 30 days before departure rather than only beyond 90 days — that is language about availability, not about how a given date is priced. Two facts cut against any confident claim either way: Air India publishes no route-by-route award chart at all, and its programme terms reserve the number of points required for an Award Flight to its "sole discretion, with or without prior notice". Its own Points Calculator, which Air India names as the way to find the points price, asks for airline, cabin, tier, origin and destination — not a travel date. Until Air India says otherwise, price your actual dates before you transfer anything in.
2. New international starting prices. One-way international award flights now start from roughly 35,000 Maharaja Points to Europe and the UK, 40,000 to the US and Australia, and 50,000 to Canada, with cabin upgrades from 4,000 points. Treat these as floors, not typical prices.

The takeaway: if you redeem economy, the revaluation helped you. If you were banking points for a first-class or premium-economy aspirational redemption, re-run your target — it may now cost more than you planned.

What the new chart actually costs: route examples

Air India labels its published examples indicative and subject to availability, so treat these as floors rather than typical prices. They show how much cheaper the short-haul and Southeast Asia network got:

Two routes deserve a specific callout — one good, one to avoid:

• London is a rare bright spot right now, but for an unusual reason: fuel-driven surcharge hikes and dynamic pricing have pushed Virgin Atlantic's own Avios/Flying Club redemptions to this route sharply higher and less predictable through 2026. Air India's pricing to London (mid-30,000s and up) has, as a result, looked comparatively attractive at times. Treat this as an opportunistic sweet spot tied to current market conditions, not a permanent feature of the chart — reprice both options before you book.
• Hong Kong and Japan got more expensive, not cheaper. Delhi–Hong Kong roughly doubled (from about 16,000 to 30,000 points in economy), and Delhi–Tokyo (Haneda) business class rose into the 90,000–110,000 range. For these two markets specifically, you are almost always better off redeeming through Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Hong Kong) or JAL Mileage Bank / ANA Flying Honors (Japan) instead of Air India — both price their own nonstops meaningfully lower.

A booking-channel tip that is easy to miss: book directly on airindia.com or the Air India app (rather than a travel agent or OTA) and you earn an extra 2 Maharaja Points per ₹100 spent, on top of your normal earn rate. It is a small, permanent, evergreen bonus — worth defaulting to the official channel when the fare is otherwise comparable.

The tiers, and how to earn status now

Maharaja Club has four tiers — Red, Silver, Gold, Platinum — and from April 2026 the airline made it easier and faster to climb them.

Earning rate. On Air India flight spend you earn from 6 Maharaja Points per ₹100 at Red, scaling up with status to as much as 10 per ₹100 at Platinum. Because earning is spend-based, a single expensive long-haul business ticket can now move your balance more than several cheap domestic hops did under the old distance model.

Faster qualification (from April 2026). Status now turns on the total number of flights flown, with a minimum share on Air India — 20 flights for Silver (at least 4 on Air India), 45 for Gold (at least 8), and 60 for Platinum (at least 12). Those totals are down from 30, 60 and 90 respectively, so for frequent flyers this is a markedly more achievable path to status than before.

Or qualify on spend instead of flight count. If you do not fly often but spend heavily with Air India — a handful of expensive international or business-class tickets rather than many trips — there is a revenue-spend alternative path: roughly ₹2.5 lakh for Silver, ₹5 lakh for Gold, and ₹7.5 lakh for Platinum in Air India spend within a year. Either route gets you there; you do not need to satisfy both.

Faster crediting. Points are now credited within roughly two hours of completing an Air India or Star Alliance partner flight, rather than days later — useful when you want to redeem quickly off a freshly earned balance.

No credit card fast-tracks status today. As of mid-2026 there is no co-branded card that grants Maharaja Club status automatically — the flights-or-spend routes above are the only way in. A new Air India Maharaja Club co-branded credit card has been publicly flagged as coming, and there is hope it will include a status component, but nothing has been confirmed. Existing holders of the discontinued SBI Air India Signature card do not get a status shortcut either.

Free cancellation gets better as you climb tiers. Each status tier (from Silver up) carries a free-cancellation window on award bookings, refunding your points in full if you cancel inside it — cancelling outside the window (or holding no status at all) typically costs 25% of the points back: Silver gets 30 days before departure, Gold gets 7 days, and Platinum's window is shorter still (effectively down to a couple of hours before departure). Separately, everyone — regardless of tier — gets a blanket 24-hour-from-booking free change/cancellation window on India- or US-originating bookings, provided the first flight is still at least 7 days out. Booking ahead and cancelling for free if plans change, rather than booking last-minute, is a genuinely useful lever once you hold status.

Family pooling is real, free, and works through the Air India website. If several family members hold Maharaja Club accounts, one of them (the Family Head, who must be 18 or over) can create a Family Pool of up to nine people including themselves, with a minimum of two. Air India charges nothing for it, and its own FAQ puts it plainly: "Is there any fee for creating a family pool? No. Creating a Family Pool is free of charge." A creation fee did exist earlier and has since been removed; Air India says fees paid before that change are not refundable. The Head and every member must have flown at least two Air India flights on different booking references (PNRs), credited to their account, before creating or joining. The minimum joining age is 2, and an invitation link expires 14 days after it is sent.

The cost of pooling is not money, it is where your points land. From the day a member joins, 100% of the Maharaja Points they earn in future go to the Family Head's account and they stop accruing points of their own. Points already sitting in their account stay theirs, and Tier Points and tier segments stay with the member too, so nobody's status is affected. But only the Head can redeem, members cannot transfer points to one another, a member can only leave after a year, and the points they contributed stay in the pool when they go. Pools created before 11 March 2026 were moved onto the same 100% split. Pooling does solve the real problem of points stranding in low-activity accounts, but it solves it by concentrating a family's balance in one person's hands, which is a family decision more than a points decision. Note too which way the restriction runs: any member who has those two credited flights can already book award seats for other people without a pool at all, whereas a Family Head cannot book for anyone outside the pool, and Air India reserves the right to cancel such bookings without a refund.

Where Maharaja Points actually shine: Star Alliance

The single most important fact for getting value out of Maharaja Points is one the marketing rarely leads with: Air India is a member of Star Alliance (it joined in 2014). That means Maharaja Points are not just an Air India currency — they can book award seats across the Star Alliance network.

Online redemption with points is supported on several partners — including United Airlines, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand and Austrian Airlines — with more bookable through the contact centre. As of 22 May 2026, you can also redeem Maharaja Points on Air India Express codeshare flights, which extends the programme's usefulness into the budget short-haul network.

The sweet spot is premium-cabin Star Alliance redemptions. Business class booked with Maharaja Points on the right partner route delivers some of the best value in the programme — comfortably into the range where each point is worth several times what a domestic economy redemption returns. If you are going to chase Maharaja Points deliberately rather than just accumulate them, this is the redemption to aim at. Domestic economy is fine for using points up; long-haul business is where they earn their keep.

One specific Star Alliance sweet spot worth flagging: short-haul United Airlines flights within the US. United's domestic award chart (bookable with Maharaja Points) starts at a genuinely low floor — coast-to-coast-type domestic routes can run into five figures in economy, with first class costing meaningfully more but still well below what a comparable Air India long-haul redemption costs. Exact pricing depends on the specific city pair and distance band, so check the live points calculator for your route, but if you are already in the US on a trip funded by an international Maharaja Points redemption, topping it off with a cheap United domestic leg is worth doing before you look elsewhere.

Feeding Maharaja Points from a credit card

This is where the programme intersects with what we cover at CardAdvisor. There are two ways an Indian credit card puts Maharaja Points in your account.

1. The co-branded card route is closed. SBI's Air India co-brands — Platinum and Signature — have been shut to new applicants since 10 October 2024, following the Vistara merger. If you already hold one, note that it does not work the way it's usually described: your SBI points convert to Maharaja Points at 1:1 (minimum 5,000, in multiples of 5,000), and Air India rejects the conversion until you have completed a first flight with them. Points that land are then valid for only 12 months — they expire faster than the SBI points you converted. It is a transfer route with a ratio and a clock, not a frictionless earn.

2. Transfer bank reward points into Maharaja Points. This is now the real route, and twelve bank currencies feed Maharaja Points. Sorted by what a card point is actually worth (a Maharaja Point is ~₹1, so the ratio is the value here):

• Axis EDGE Miles — the best feeder in the market, and the one most coverage misses. The Atlas transfers at 1:2 (~₹2 per EDGE Mile) and the Olympus at 1:4 (~₹4), against a 1,20,000 EDGE Miles/yr Group B cap. Note this is EDGE Miles, not the weaker EDGE Reward Points that Magnus and Reserve earn — and transfer is not premium-only: Axis's own eligible-cards list runs to dozens of cards.
• 1:1 routes (~₹1 per point): ICICI on the Emeralde Private Metal and Times Black only; RBL Lumière; SBI Card MILES; Kotak Solitaire; IndusInd Pioneer Private and Tiger — the lifetime-free Tiger is the outlier worth knowing, holding the same 1:1 as the invite-only Pioneer Private; HSBC TravelOne and Premier.
• HDFC reward points — 2:1 on Infinia and Diners Black (~₹0.50), 3:1 on Regalia Gold (~₹0.33).
• 2:1 mid-tier (~₹0.50): IndusInd Pinnacle, Pioneer Heritage and Indulge; RBL Nova; Kotak Air Plus Prime. All sit a rung below their own family's flagship.
• The ICICI trap, worth stating plainly: every ICICI card other than Emeralde Private Metal and Times Black transfers at 6:1 — about ₹0.17 a point, which is worse than redeeming the same points for vouchers at ~₹0.40. The 1:1 headline does not travel across the ICICI range. Minimum 2,000 points, up to 5 working days.
• Value-destroying routes to avoid — the full list, because it is longer than most coverage admits. Sorted worst first: Axis Select, Privilege and Rewards at 10:1 (~₹0.10 — EDGE Reward Points, not the Miles above, and the single worst route into Maharaja Club); YES at 8:1 on Private and 10:1 on the flagship Marquee and most of the range; Federal 6:1 Celesta and 7:1 Imperio, the premium card taking the worse ratio; every ICICI card bar the two named above at 6:1; SBI AURUM at 5:1 (~₹0.20, minimum 5,000 points — and note AURUM's own reward points are the generic SBI currency, not the Travel Credits that make SBI Card MILES a 1:1 feeder); and IndusInd Legend at 4:1 (~₹0.25) against 1:1 on the Pioneer Private and Tiger in the same family.
• The shape to take away: on eight of the twelve currencies the ratio is set by the CARD rather than the bank, and the spread inside one bank can be 10x — Axis runs from 1:4 to 10:1, ICICI from 1:1 to 6:1, IndusInd from 1:1 to 4:1. Never read a bank's best published ratio as yours.

Air India publishes its own per-bank partner tables, which is the only citable source for most of these — the banks themselves largely don't.

There is also a route that is not a "transfer" at all: American Express runs Air India as a partner brand in its RewardXcelerator programme, paying bonus Membership Rewards points on Air India bookings. The window that ran to 31 July 2026 was renewed on 1 August 2026 and now runs to 31 July 2027: 5X on the Platinum Reserve, 10X on the Platinum Charge and Centurion (and 2X on the Platinum Corporate Card). The conditions are tighter than the headline suggests — it pays only on rupee transactions made on Air India's own website or mobile app, and not through travel agents, online travel agents, the IVR, an Air India counter, or on cabin upgrades. There is no minimum spend and no cap on the points. It only pays out on Air India purchases, not as a standing transfer ratio, so treat it as a booking-time promotion rather than a permanent card feature — and note that Amex has published no commitment to renew it again.

⚠ This is not a reason to go and get one of these cards — you cannot. As of 29 August 2026 American Express has paused new card applications across its India range, including the Platinum Reserve and the Platinum Charge, while it makes what it calls planned updates to its domestic card-issuing technology platforms. Both product pages carry the notice and neither shows an Apply button. The offer is worth knowing about if you already hold one of these cards; it is not currently an acquisition route.

Two warnings here, because this is exactly where people lose value:

• Ratios vary by card and change over time. A premium card transfers at a far better rate than an entry-level one, and banks revise these ratios. Always confirm the live ratio on the bank's own portal before you transfer. For the full, card-by-card detail on the two largest issuers, see the HDFC reward points transfer guide and the Axis EDGE Rewards guide.
• Never treat a transfer-bonus promotion as the standard rate. Air India periodically runs bonus windows that boost the number of Maharaja Points you receive. Those are promotions, not the baseline — the correct play is to bank your bank points and transfer only when a bonus window and a specific redemption line up at the same time. Transferring speculatively at the base rate, with no booking in mind, is the most common way to strand value.

A transfer into Maharaja Points is irreversible — once your bank points become airline points they can only be spent inside Maharaja Club. Transfer to book, never "to be safe."

What happened to your Vistara co-branded card

If you held a Club Vistara co-branded credit card — the Axis Bank, IDFC FIRST or SBI Card versions — the merger changed your card, not just your points balance.

• New Vistara co-brand cards stopped being issued from 30 September 2024.
• Renewals ceased after 31 March 2025. Existing cardholders generally kept benefits through the remainder of their renewal year, with most winding down by around March 2026.
• The headline perk — the annual milestone free-ticket voucher — was cut. IDFC FIRST removed its annual benefits including the milestone ticket from 31 March 2025; SBI Card revised its Club Vistara cards from 1 April 2025. For a lot of holders, the free economy ticket was the entire reason the card paid for its fee.
• Points earned on those cards were redirected into Air India's programme at 1:1.

If you are still carrying one of these cards out of habit, this is the moment to re-run the maths. The free flight that justified the annual fee is gone. Decide whether the card still earns its keep on rewards alone — and if not, look at a current travel card that either earns Maharaja Points directly or transfers to them efficiently.

Is the Maharaja Club worth chasing in 2026?

Honestly: it depends on how you fly.

It is worth it if you fly Air India or Star Alliance partners with any regularity, especially in premium cabins. The spend-based earning rewards higher fares, the April 2026 revaluation made economy cheaper, and Star Alliance access gives you genuinely valuable long-haul business-class redemptions. Status is also more attainable than it was.

It is less compelling if you mostly buy cheap domestic economy on cash, rarely fly Air India, or were specifically banking points for first-class or premium-economy redemptions that just got more expensive.

For most Indian flyers, the sensible posture is the same as with any airline currency: earn Maharaja Points as a by-product — of flights you were taking anyway, and of credit card points transferred against a specific booking — rather than treating them as a savings account. Points are worth what you redeem them for, and after April 2026 the redemptions worth aiming at are clearer than they have been in years.

For sweet-spot redemptions across the programme and the card-by-card transfer ratios as they stand today, the programme page tracks the live numbers.

Programme details — earning rates, redemption levels, tier thresholds and transfer ratios — are set by Air India and the card issuers and are revised periodically. The specifics above reflect the position around the 1 April 2026 revaluation; always confirm current terms on the Air India Maharaja Club site and your card issuer's portal before earning or redeeming.