Do Maharaja Club Points Expire? Yes, But Here's How to Keep Them Alive

Air India markets Maharaja Club points as "evergreen." That sounds great on paper. In practice? Your points will expire if you're not careful.

Here's everything you need to know about keeping your hard-earned points alive.

The Actual Expiry Rule

Maharaja Club points are valid for 24 months. Every Air India flight you take pushes that out by another 24 months from the date you travelled.

Not 24 months from when you earned them. 24 months from your last Air India flight.

This is a crucial distinction. If you flew Air India in January 2026, your entire balance (whether it's 5,000 points or 500,000) stays valid until January 2028. Fly them again anytime before then, and the whole balance gets another 24 months.

Your membership itself never expires. Only the points do.

What Counts as "Activity"?

Here's where most people get tripped up, and where a lot of published advice on this is wrong.

One thing extends your points: flying Air India.

Air India's own FAQ spells it out:

"No, your account will not expire. However, Maharaja Points have a default validity of 2 years which keeps getting extended every time you fly with Air India (not valid for Award Flight, Codeshare, Interline or Star Alliance Partner flights)."

What doesn't count:

• Flights on Star Alliance partner airlines, even when you credit the points to your Maharaja Club account
• Award flights booked with points
• Codeshare and interline flights
• Redeeming points for a cabin upgrade
• Any other redemption activity

The Star Alliance one catches people out, so it's worth being blunt about it. Crediting a Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines flight to Maharaja Club will earn you points. It will not extend the validity of the points already sitting in your account. Earning and extending are two different things, and only Air India metal does the second one.

The redemption side matters too. If you've been sitting on a balance and finally spend it on a business class flight to London, that booking doesn't reset your clock on whatever is left over.

Check Your Expiry Date

Log into your Maharaja Club account and look at the Account Summary section. Your expiry date is displayed there.

Note what that prompt actually says. Fly with Air India before the date shown. Not fly anyone, not earn anything. That's the rule in Air India's own words, on your own account page.

Set a calendar reminder for 22 months after your last Air India flight. That gives you a 2-month buffer to take action before points vanish.

How to Keep Points Alive

The simplest approach: take at least one revenue Air India flight every 24 months.

Even a short domestic hop counts. A Delhi-Jaipur or Mumbai-Goa flight for a few thousand rupees can extend millions of points by another two years. The math is obvious.

There's no partner workaround here, and no way to buy your way out of it with a transfer. If you're not planning any Air India flights in the next two years, a cheap domestic ticket is the whole strategy.

If Your Points Already Expired

All is not lost. Maharaja Club offers point revival, but it comes with costs and conditions.

Revival rate: ₹0.60 per point

Conditions:

• Must request within 12 months of expiry
• Revived points are valid for only 1 year (not the usual 24 months)

Let's do the math. Reviving 100,000 points costs ₹60,000. At that price, you'd often be better off just buying a revenue ticket and starting fresh, unless you have a massive balance where revival makes sense despite the cost.

The bottom line: don't let it get to revival. Prevention is far cheaper than cure.

Bottomline

Maharaja Club points aren't truly evergreen. They need attention every 24 months, and the only thing that resets the clock is an Air India boarding pass.

But 24 months is generous compared to many programs. Flying Blue, for instance, has the same 24-month rule. Some programs are stricter.

The key is knowing the rule exists and planning for it. A few minutes of attention every couple of years keeps your points safe.

Don't let hard-earned miles vanish because of a technicality.

And if you want to earn more Maharaja Club points without flying, check out every credit card that transfers to Air India. Just remember those transfers top up your balance, they don't extend it.