Exactly four years after it first took to the skies, Akasa Air has unveiled a full-fledged frequent flyer programme. Called Akasa Elevate, the programme marks a milestone for India’s youngest airline and introduces a modern, revenue-based loyalty ecosystem that promises to reward passengers not just for flying, but also for spending on ancillary services.
While Akasa has built a reputation over the past four years for punctuality, customer service and rapid expansion, the absence of a loyalty programme remained one of the few missing pieces in its offering, particularly for frequent travellers and corporate flyers. With Akasa Elevate, the airline is hoping to change that.
More importantly, Akasa isn’t merely launching a points programme, à la BluChips. It is launching a structured ecosystem with elite status, rewards on ancillary purchases, fast-track qualification and meaningful travel benefits that extend well beyond earning free flights.
Akasa Elevate: A loyalty programme built around how people actually travel
Akasa says Elevate has been designed around the way its customers travel rather than following traditional airline loyalty models. Members can earn Elevate Points on eligible flight bookings as well as ancillary purchases, including services such as seat selection, meals and baggage, making almost every rupee spent with the airline count towards future rewards.
The airline has also introduced additional rewards for passengers who book directly through the Akasa website or mobile application, creating another incentive to bypass online travel agencies and book directly with the airline.
Unlike older frequent flyer programmes that were built almost entirely around flying activity, Akasa is clearly positioning Elevate as a broader customer engagement platform where every interaction with the airline contributes towards earning rewards.
Four membership tiers from day one
Akasa Elevate launches with four membership tiers. Bronze serves as the entry-level membership and is automatically assigned when customers enrol in the programme. Bronze members earn 8 Elevate Points for every INR 100 spent.
- The first elite tier, Silver, requires either INR 75,000 in eligible spend or six eligible flights within a membership year. Silver members earn 10 Elevate Points per INR 100.
- Moving up, Gold status requires INR 1.25 lakh in eligible spend or 15 eligible flights, increasing the earning rate to 12 Elevate Points per INR 100.
At the top sits Platinum, which requires INR 2.5 lakh in eligible spend or 30 eligible flights, rewarding members with 14 Elevate Points per INR 100 spent.
Direct bookings through Akasa’s website and mobile app, where members will receive four bonus Elevate Points per INR 100 on eligible bookings. That means a Platinum member booking directly with Akasa could effectively earn 18 Elevate Points per INR 100 spent before considering any future promotional bonuses.
Qualification by flights or spend
One of the more customer-friendly aspects of Akasa Elevate is its dual qualification model. Instead of forcing customers to qualify solely through flight activity, members can earn elite status either by completing a specified number of eligible flights or by meeting eligible spend thresholds. This makes the programme attractive not only for frequent commuters taking shorter sectors but also for travellers purchasing fewer, higher-value tickets. According to Akasa, this approach is intended to make elite qualification more intuitive and aligned with natural travel behaviour.
Benefits extend well beyond earning points
Akasa has consciously tried to ensure that the programme delivers value throughout the travel experience rather than simply accumulating points for future redemptions. Silver members begin receiving discounts across several ancillary services, including:
- 15% off pre-booked Café Akasa meals
- 15% off pre-booked excess baggage
- 15% off A+ extra legroom seats
- 15% off standard seat selection
- 15% off Akasa Priority services
Gold members receive significantly enhanced benefits, including:
- 50% discount on seat selection
- 50% discount on Akasa Priority
- 50% discount on booking cancellation fees
- Waiver of booking change fees
- Complimentary GetEarly access
- Additional 5 kg baggage allowance
- Dedicated priority customer care
Platinum members build further on this with:
- Complimentary seat selection
- Complimentary Akasa Priority
- Complimentary GetEarly
- Waived booking cancellation fees
- Waived booking change fees
- Additional free baggage
- Dedicated priority support
- 50% discount on A+ extra legroom seats
This emphasis on immediate travel benefits differentiates Elevate from programmes that primarily focus on future reward flights. Travellers receive tangible savings every time they fly rather than waiting until they have accumulated enough points for a redemption. And this is unlike BluChip, where a whole bunch of jumping hoops might be involved to get to the perks (6E Prime).
Fast progression through the tiers
Perhaps the biggest talking point is how accessible Akasa wants elite status to be. A traveller flying six eligible sectors or spending INR 75,000 with the airline can already reach Silver status, while Gold requires 15 flights and Platinum 30 flights over a rolling 365-day qualification period. For domestic business travellers who regularly commute between major metros, these thresholds appear relatively achievable, particularly given Akasa’s expanding domestic and international network.
To encourage early adoption, Akasa is also introducing a limited-period retro claim facility. Passengers who have flown on Akasa Air since April 1, 2026, can enrol in Akasa Elevate and retrospectively claim Elevate Points for eligible travel completed before the programme officially launched.
Retro-credit campaigns are relatively uncommon in airline loyalty launches and should be welcome news for Akasa’s existing customer base, many of whom have accumulated substantial travel with the airline over the past few months.
A natural next step in Akasa’s evolution
The launch comes at an important point in Akasa Air’s growth story. Since commencing operations in August 2022, the airline says it has carried nearly 30 million passengers, become India’s fastest-growing airline and grown its fleet to 40 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft while serving 29 domestic and seven international destinations.
As the network has expanded, so too has the profile of its customer base. Corporate travellers, SMEs and frequent leisure flyers increasingly expect airlines to recognise loyalty through meaningful rewards and elite recognition. Until now, Akasa’s absence from the loyalty landscape had become one of the few competitive gaps compared to larger rivals. With Elevate, the airline now completes a key piece of its customer proposition.
More than just another frequent flyer programme
Akasa Elevate enters an Indian market where airline loyalty has become significantly more competitive over the past two years. Air India has rebuilt Maharaja Club following the integration of Vistara’s Club Vistara, IndiGo has introduced BluChip, SpiceJet has SpiceClub, and Air India Express now participates in the Maharaja Club ecosystem and also has its own loyalty (status) programme.
Rather than trying to replicate legacy airline programmes, Akasa has taken a more pragmatic approach. Elevate is heavily centred around rewarding customer spend, simplifying qualification through either flights or expenditure, and delivering immediate value through discounts, priority services and fee waivers. Not to forget that their founder, ex-CMO and now COO, was at Jet Airways for a long time, handling Marketing and E-commerce, and has a tonne of insight into India’s loyalty and customer e-com habits.
A new revenue stream
Every airline in India wants the money that loyalty can generate. Around the time of launch, Akasa was not interested in a loyalty programme, perhaps because IndiGo and Air India Express did not have one. But over time, everyone has built up the capabilities, and so as a serious player, Akasa had to level up. Akasa has confirmed that Elevate will continue evolving with new capabilities, partnerships and additional benefits as the airline grows.
A couple of key reasons. Selling those points makes money. So, in the future, Akasa will be able to sell these points to partners and banks and also create its own co-branded credit card. And second, we have all heard the famous words, ” Acquiring a new customer costs 5–7x more than keeping an existing one.”
That future partner ecosystem will be worth watching closely. While the launch focuses primarily on flying with Akasa itself, partnerships with banks, hotels and other travel brands could substantially increase the programme’s attractiveness over time.
Redemption Capabilities
Don’t go by the 18 points / INR 100 spent as 18% return on your flights. While Akasa has still not shown me the redemption capability, I guess this will be each point of revenue value (hopefully fixed), and I imagine this value to be either INR 0.25, INR 0.5 or INR 0.33. And these points should be useful for ancillary sales or ticket sales.
Bottomline
Akasa Elevate is arguably the airline’s biggest customer-facing launch since it commenced operations four years ago. More than simply introducing a frequent flyer programme, Akasa has created a loyalty platform that rewards both flying and ancillary spending while making elite status relatively accessible through either spend or flight activity.
The emphasis on immediate travel benefits—priority services, discounts, baggage allowances, fee waivers and faster tier progression—should resonate with frequent domestic travellers, while the generous earning rates and bonus rewards for direct bookings make the programme attractive even before future partnerships arrive.
For an airline that has rapidly built a reputation for dependable operations and customer service, Akasa Elevate fills one of the last major gaps in its product offering. The next chapter will depend on how quickly the airline expands redemption opportunities and builds a broader partner ecosystem, but as launch programmes go, Akasa has made a confident start.
What do you think of Akasa Elevate, and would you participate?
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