Cheap ticket to Baku but with extra visa cost
Tickets to Baku from India cost around 35000 onwards. Indigo flies to Baku via Delhi. Delhi Baku return ticket costs around 30-32k onwards. If we're booking one stop from other Indian cities- say Mangaluru or Mumbai or Kolkata that is another 10-12k taking total cost to 42-45k INR onwards.
Air Azarbaijan flies direct to Baku from Mumbai and costs around 35000 INR onwards for a return ticket. https://azal.az/en/
As I was scouting for a better option, I suddenly came across this on Skyscanner. 24k for a return ticket to Baku felt relatively cheap compared to other options.
This cheap ticket is made up by Makemytrip by combining Individual tickets.
If we book 4 tickets individually, they cost a lot less.
- Kochi-Abu Dabhi costs 5500 INR one way
- AUH-Baku costs 6500 INR one way
- Baku-AUH is 5800 INR one way
- AUH to COK 6400 INR one way
So MMT is booking 4 separate tickets and offering me a round trip to Baku at about 24000 INR
Very clever of Make My trip and it is very unfortunate that Air Arabia is not offering it directly under one PNR for this price.
While it may appear tempting to book above ticket for 24000 INR, UAE Visa cost will come to haunt you.
A single entry UAT visa costs 7500 INR, one month multiple entry visa costs 14000 INR
For above tickets we will have to clear immigration at AUH twice, so cost of 2 visas or 1 month multiple entry visa will take the total expense to close to 38-40k making it at par with Indigo or Air Azerbaijan options mentioned earlier in the post, minus any visa hassle for transit airport.
UAE allows transit visa for a cheaper price of 50 AED but I don't think that applies if we have tickets in two separate PNRs. Air Arabia won't let you board in Kochi if you don't have a valid visa to enter UAE.
However if you have UAE golden visa, residency, work permit or can get VOA due to US Visa etc then this option will work for you.
Proceed with caution.
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