Introduction
Hello and welcome to the Flight Booking Guide! I’ve covered all you need to know about booking your flight right here. For your first trip, you’ll need a lot of luggage; therefore, you can discover helpful information about the airline that offers the most, Vistara Airways.
Vistara’s International Connectivity
Vistara offers a single international flight from Delhi to Frankfurt. The direct flight departs from Delhi at 12:50 IST and reaches FRA at 18:20 CET (21:50 IST), with a flight duration of approximately 9 hours. Except for Wednesday, this flight is available every day of the week.
Benefits of Vistara
The two essential variants are Economy Standard and Economy Flexi. Typically, you can carry 2 pc x 23 kg baggage with Economy Standard. As a student, you can carry an additional baggage allowance of 1 pc x 23 kg. The economy Flexi variant offers 32 x 2 pc baggage (and 1 pc x 23 kg baggage for students). Vistara’s Delhi to Frankfurt route operates with a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, providing complimentary seat selection and food during the flight.
Luggage
Ensure your baggage meets the maximum weight limit of 32 kg / 23 kg in a single piece. You must stick to the per kg bag limit and not consider total. If you have 40 kg in 1 bag and 15 kg in another, the staff will charge extra for 40 kg baggage, even though the total weight is within the limit.
If additional weight is carried (between 23-32kg), you will be charged USD 100, irrespective of the variant and fare selected. For additional pieces, you will be charged USD 220 per piece. Further exceeding the baggage allowance, you will be charged USD 15 per kg at the airport as an excess baggage fee or the equivalent amount in the local currency.
The sum of the dimensions (length + breadth + height) should be at most 62 inches or 158 cm for checked-in baggage. Generally, most large trolleys have a maximum total dimension of 161 cm, which is acceptable.
Consider using Polypropylene or polycarbonate luggage for durability. You can find some great options like Kamiliant (Sub-brand of American Tourister) and Safari online. You can get these bags for as low as INR 2000 or INR 2500 during the sale.
Although it is unknown if European airports utilize the TSA lock, it is valid in US airports. The feature is available in some airports in Europe but not all. So it is up to you whether you obtain a TSA lock. Baggage without a TSA lock is also acceptable.
Student Offer
If you’re a student with a valid visa and university enrollment, you qualify for Vistara’s student offer. You can get more info about VFS experience and documents required to obtain a student visa here. The exact terms, as mentioned on the site, are:
- A student with a valid visa for and enrolled in a university at any international destination Vistara flies to.
- His/her age must be 12 years or above on the journey’s commencement date.
- The offer applies only to one-way fares to and from India.
- The excess baggage allowance applies to students traveling from domestic to international destinations and vice versa. Please note the allowance is only applicable for one-way journeys.
- Students traveling from an international destination to another international destination will not be able to claim excess baggage allowance.
Though the first point says that you need both a visa and an enrollment letter, it is acceptable to just carry a visa and admit letter.
What if You’re Not in Delhi?
If you live in a city with direct flights from Vistara to Delhi, you may take advantage of the entire check-in luggage limit (69 kg for economy standard and 87 kg for economy flexi) and travel effortlessly to Delhi. Vistara has direct flights to Delhi from Trivandrum, Kochi, Coimbatore, Chennai, Bengaluru, Goa, Mopa, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Raipur, Indore, Kolkata, Ranchi, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Bagdogra, Patna, Varanasi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jammu, Srinagar, and Leh.
Even though the procedure at Delhi Airport usually takes no more than 2 hours, it is preferable to have a layover period of at least 3 hours there. Ensure this when making your flight reservations. Also, remember that you must book your domestic trip under the same PNR as your international ticket, which requires choosing Frankfurt as “destination” and your starting place as “origin” when booking.
Cancellation and Date Changes
For Economy Standard, Vistara charges INR 9000 for cancellations and INR 6000 for date changes. For Economy Flexi, Up to 7 days before departure, cancellations for economy flexi are free; after that, they cost INR 6000. Up to 7 days before departure, one date change is free; after that, it costs INR 5000. You can get more info here.
Pricing
The cheapest ticket for travel from Delhi is a combined total of INR 35k for economy standard and INR 38k for economy flexi. You can choose Flexi, which offers a higher baggage allowance, free cancellation, and date changes for just INR 3k more. If you book early rather than later, you will easily save this 3k because these go up to more than twice the price. Of course, it will cost more if you are traveling by plane to Delhi from somewhere else.
If you are taking an education loan to fund the blocked account or to pay the tuition fee, you can also get some extra (in the form of a loan, of course) to book your flight ticket. You can get more details here.
Ticket Booking Process
You can only book from Vistara’s official website to avail of the student offer. You cannot avail this offer if you book from elsewhere.
When looking for a flight, the student option checkbox should be visible while inputting the flight’s origin and destination. To activate the student option, tick the box that states that it only applies to one-way flights. If, for some reason, you cannot see the student option, you can use the student offer page and click on the “Book now” button on this page.
You can proceed and fill in all the required details. You will get an option of Advance Passenger Information; you can either check it or leave it blank. It won’t make a difference.
Pro Tips
- If you want to save money, start well in advance. Just check the prices of flights for the next 15 days, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, and 4 months. You will get an estimate of the lowest fare and when it occurs. It is usually between 2 and 3 months.
- You can book the economy flexi ticket before itself as it offers free cancellation and date change until 7 days of departure.
- If you are unsure of the travel because of Visa status, you can book maybe 3 economy flexi flights spread over a span of around 1 month (if you have the money). You can cancel the rest when you know of the visa status later.
- Even after booking an Economy Flexi ticket, it will be mentioned as 2 Pc baggage instead of 3 Pc baggage. Fret not. They will allow the third bag at the airport after you show them the visa and admit letter. You can confirm once with Vistara customer care that your ticket is booked under the “student” option.
- Even if you have an SBI/Axis Vistara credit card and get a free flight voucher, you cannot use it if you want to go to Delhi (and further to Frankfurt). You will also be unable to use the existing CV points for booking. Although if you are a Vistara CV Silver, Gold, and Platinum member, you will get 5, 10, and 15 kg extra, respectively, over and above the mentioned weight limit for both domestic and international flights.
That’s a wrap! I hope this information was valuable.
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