Star Alliance airlines Lufthansa, Swiss, and United have low fares from San Francisco to Mumbai for departures beginning in September in the $840s and dropping to $805 for November. January to March 2016 offers many dates with $799 round trip fares. Lowest fares tend to require flying United Airlines one way via Mumbai–Newark nonstop route.
United.com Lufthansa outbound San Francisco – Frankfurt -Mumbai
United Airlines inbound Mumbai – Newark – San Francisco
$854.49 Sunday October 25 – Thursday November 5
$735.00 base fare earns 3,675 redeemable miles in economy K booking class.
Star Alliance carriers have had this route priced about $50 lower at times during the past couple months for November 2015 travel. This is near the low fare.
Even lower are $799 flights for SFO-BOM departing January to March 2016, but all the itineraries I checked required a change of airport between JFK and EWR and that is a routing to avoid by all costs considering there is only a $20 savings compared to other Star Alliance flight options with Lufthansa and Swiss.
Delta/Air France low fares in 2016
For 2016 departures there is the option of flying Air France SFO-CDG and Jet Airways to to Mumbai.
Air France San Francisco – Paris – Mumbai
$833.91 February 3-11, 2016 in economy V class with Jet Airways codeshare CDG-BOM outbound.
