Akasa Elevate: How Akasa Air's New Loyalty Program Works

Akasa Air turned four on 7 August 2026, and it marked the day by launching the one thing it never had. Akasa Elevate is the airline's first frequent flyer program, which means every major carrier flying in India now gives you a reason to come back.

There is something you should know before you enrol, and it sits at the bottom of the announcement rather than the top. You can start earning points today. You cannot spend them. Redemption has not gone live, and Akasa has not said when it will.

Here is how the program works, what each tier actually gets you, and whether it is worth joining while half of it is still switched off.

Akasa Elevate at a glance

How you climb the tiers

This is the part Akasa got right, and it is worth understanding before anything else. To move up a tier you need either a spend target or a number of flights within a rolling 365 days. You do not need both.

That single word matters. If you fly Akasa often on cheap fares, the flight count gets you there. If you fly less often but book expensive tickets or full-fare business trips, the spend gets you there instead. Most programs make you satisfy both.

You can also jump straight to Gold or Platinum if you cross the threshold, without stopping at the tier below. Once you are upgraded, that status holds for 365 days.

What you earn

Elevate Points accrue per ₹100 spent, and the rate goes up with your tier. What makes this more generous than it first looks is that add-ons earn at the same rate as the ticket. Your seat selection, your Café Akasa meal, your excess baggage: all of it counts.

On top of that, every tier earns 4 bonus points per ₹100 on flights booked through AkasaAir.com or the Akasa app. A Platinum member booking direct is therefore earning 18 points per ₹100 on the fare.

Two conditions are easy to miss. Add-ons only earn when you buy them from Akasa directly, so a seat you paid for through a travel site will not count. And while bookings made through participating travel agents can earn base points, the 4-point channel bonus is reserved for direct bookings.

What each tier gets you

Akasa has kept the benefits practical rather than aspirational. There is no lounge access and no upgrade currency here. What you get instead is a steadily shrinking bill for the things you were going to pay for anyway.

Gold is where the program starts paying for itself, because that is where change fees get waived and cancellation fees halve. For anyone whose plans move around, that is worth more than a discount on a sandwich.

The part that is not finished

Akasa's own page carries a "Coming Soon" badge on the Redeem card, and the FAQ says you can begin redeeming "once the feature goes live". No award chart has been published. No redemption rate has been announced. There is no date.

So for now, Elevate is a program you can pay into but not draw from. Points sit in your account and wait.

A few other gaps worth naming, because they will decide whether this matters to you:

• No co-branded credit card. There is no card that earns Elevate Points, so the only way to build a balance is to fly Akasa.
• No bank transfer partners. You cannot move points in from a bank rewards program the way you can with several other airlines.
• Points are locked to you. They cannot be transferred, sold, pooled with family, or converted to cash, and you are allowed one account per person.
• Cancelled and unused tickets earn nothing. No-shows do not count either, and points credit within 30 days of you completing the journey.

None of that makes the program bad. It makes it early. Worth judging on what it becomes rather than what it is in week one.

Retro claims are open, but check your own dates

If you have flown Akasa recently, you can claim those flights after you enrol. This is where the published information disagrees with itself: press coverage at launch said flights from 1 April 2026 onwards qualify, while Akasa's own loyalty FAQ describes a 90-day window.

We are not going to pick one for you. Enrol, open the retro claim form, and see which of your flights the system actually accepts. If you have flown them in the last few months it costs nothing to try. If you have done this dance before with another airline, our IndiGo BluChip retro claim guide and the Air India retro claim guide follow the same logic.

Every Indian carrier now has a program

The most interesting thing about this launch is not the program itself. It is that Akasa was the last holdout.

Put Akasa next to IndiGo and one difference stands out. IndiGo's BluChip asks for spend and a minimum number of flights to move up a tier. Akasa asks for spend or flights. If you are the kind of flyer who takes a lot of cheap domestic hops, Akasa's structure is friendlier to you, and it is the clearest sign that the airline has thought about who actually flies it.

Air India's Maharaja Club remains the deepest of the four, with award redemptions, family pooling and partner earning already running. If you want to see what a mature version of this looks like, our Maharaja Club tier guide covers what each level is worth.

Should you sign up?

Yes, and there is not much to argue against. Joining is free, you start at Bronze automatically, and enrolling now means retro claims can pick up flights you have already taken. The points wait for you.

Be honest with yourself about the tiers, though. Six flights or ₹75,000 in a year is achievable for a regular Mumbai or Bengaluru commuter. Thirty flights for Platinum is a serious amount of flying on one airline, and chasing it before there is anything to redeem would be putting the cart a long way in front of the horse.

Fly Akasa when Akasa is the right flight. Let the points accumulate as a by-product. Revisit the moment redemption goes live, because that is when we will finally learn what an Elevate Point is worth.

Earning airline points without flying

Akasa Elevate is not a Mag Miles transfer partner, so there is no way to top up an Elevate balance from the Magnify app today. Two of the other three Indian programs are, though. Mag Miles transfer to Air India Maharaja Club and to IndiGo BluChip, both at 1:1, which means you can build a domestic award balance by buying gift cards for your everyday spending rather than by flying.

You can see every live transfer partner and the current ratios on the Magnify app. If Akasa joins that list later, it will show up there first. If you are new to all of this, start with what airline miles actually are.

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