New Delhi: Airline company Vistara is planning a complete revamp of its frequent-flyer programme ‘Club Vistara’ by increasing the number of partner companies across different segments and moving to a dynamic award-pricing system, a top airline official has said.
Under the proposed dynamic system, a seat will always be available for member-passengers in exchange for points and it will also allow members to earn and use points to book seats across all partner companies, the official further said. Club Vistara however, currently has just two airline partners — Singapore Airlines and Silk Air, but it has seven other partners across other segments.
Moreover, member-passengers can earn points by using services of any of the partners, the points earned can only be spent to purchase tickets on Vistara or other airline-partners.
Also, Club Vistara uses the traditional award chart system, wherein the seats available for members and the points required to get each such seat are fixed beforehand.
Frequent-flyer programmes across the world are junking the traditional award chart system as passengers complain that they are unable to get a seat on a flight when they need it.
“The new way that some airlines have moved is that they don’t publish the award chart. There, the numbers of points that are required for booking a seat are dynamically prepared,” Vistara’s COO Sanjiv Kapoor told this agency.
“For example, a ticket Saturday afternoon may be available for 7,000 points but the same ticket for Monday morning would be for 30,000 points. The benefit of this dynamic system is that a seat is always available in exchange for points,’ Kapoor explained.
The full-service Vistara airline is a joint venture between Tata Sons (51%) and Singapore Airlines (49%). At the moment, Club Vistara has about 1.6 million members.
The airline connects 30 destinations — including three international destinations — and operates over 1,200 flights per week using 32 aircraft in its fleet. The flight operations to three international destinations — Singapore, Bangkok and Dubai — began last month.
Amid a tough operating environment, Vistara’s losses doubled to Rs 831 crore in 2018-19. However, earlier this month, its two promoters infused Rs 500 crore in the company to keep it expanding internationally and domestically.
PTI