Strange is the aviation industry, where competitors become bedfellows. Jet Airways last week launched its own flights between Mumbai and Paris, which will be 4 times weekly right now and go to daily frequency in July. Jet has been very careful to operate a daytime flight here, because Air France already operates a daily departure from Mumbai in the evening slot. Initially, it looked like Jet Airways was only going to go after the O&D traffic because they did not have connections at the other end. Now, early this month, Jet Airways and Air France got their codeshare together, and both the carriers will place their codes on the other’s Mumbai-Paris-Mumbai flights with effect from May 25, 2014. This offers…
About Ajay
Buy 2x LifeMiles till May 30 / earn 1 mile extra for every 5 you buy
LifeMiles is the mileage program of Avianca, and they joined the Star Alliance in 2012. Ever since, they’ve been the avenue to buy low cost miles in the Star Alliance program, and get into premium cabins at a reasonable price. In one of my posts in December last year, I’d advised my readers to sign up for the program, because they frequently do promotions where you can get 100% bonus miles. Now, for the past few days, uptil May 30, 2014, they are back with a 100% bonus promotion, where you would be able to buy miles at 1.5 USD cents per piece (about INR 0.90) for a total of 75000 miles which you can purchase. You get upto 150000…
SpiceJet reconfiguring aircraft for more legspace upfront
SpiceJet has been in the process of a turnaround, and while the frequent sales have given them the cashflow, I’m hearing more and more good things from people about the better quality of their product in the past few months. Me, I quit flying them a year ago when they messed up badly on timing of flights, and a morning flight actually arrived late in the evening. But I’ll definitely give them a try after the turnaround is complete. In the meanwhile, it looks like SpiceJet is actually putting its money where the mouth is, and creating a differential offering for SpiceJet Max across its planes. Most planes, as per the COO Sanjay Kapoor, are under reconfiguration at the moment…
Qatar Airways now transfer partners for PremierMiles
PremierMiles is one of my most used credit card in India, and I definitely love it when they add more and more transfer partners. There has been a recent addition, and this is the Qatar Airways Privilege Club, where you can now transfer your PM for a 1:1 ratio. To be sure, Qatar Airways is not exactly one of the best mileage programs out there, but with this addition, PremierMiles has 2 out of the big 3 Middle-East airlines in their club, all of which incidentally offer pretty sucky redemption values. Considering QR is a oneworld member, I’d have expected similar rates for redemption on their own metal as well as partners, but this is not the case. They charge…
Winners of the Jet Airways’ discount codes announced
Earlier this week, I announced a giveaway for Jet Airways courtesy one of our readers Kamakhya, who sent me in 2 base fare waiver codes and 2 round trip INR 750 waiver codes. I also added my own roundtrip waiver for INR 750 to this. Subsequently, another reader Gaurav gave me his own codes for INR 750 off on roundtrips as well. Here is how this will work. I’ve drawn from the Random.org website, and I will announce the winners here. They can subsequently get in touch with me today on email at ajay at livefromalounge dot com to receive their codes. In case I don’t hear back from someone, I will also have a waitlist ready. Just be sure,…
Giveaway: Jet Airways base fare codes and roundtrip discount codes
Hi guys. It has been a little quiet around here. Reason? I was away on a pressure cooker trip, as I like to call it, with travels to Europe and back within 72 hours from Mumbai. Today’s giveaway comes largely courtesy a longtime reader Kamakhya, who is being generous enough to give away the following codes for use: 2 Base Fare waived ticket codes for one-way travel tickets on Jet Airways 2 Round Trip discount codes on Jet Airways for INR 750 off I am pitching in with one of my own round-trip discount codes as well for a discount of INR 750 rupees. So the total tally of prizes is like this: 2 Base Fare waived ticket codes for…
Emirates to start A380 service to Mumbai in July 2014
Emirates is surely stamping their foot and thinking how it missed the opportunity to be the first to fly their A380s to India, and Singapore Airlines will get that piece of marketing from here on. Anyhow, they’ve now announced they will move in to become the second carrier in India to fly the A380s, and they will deploy the A380s to India by upgrading one of their flights from Mumbai in July 2014. Quite interestingly, this information issued by the airline is not backed by the facts yet. Just like they are trying to act as if they had similar plans like Etihad Residences, and making noises, this is noise too because SQ recently held a press event in Delhi…
Groupon offering GoAir discount vouchers
A few days ago, I wrote about the availability of British Airways discount vouchers on Groupon India. Groupon has been working with GoAir in the past as well, and now has a promotion available, where you can purchase GoAir discount vouchers on Groupon India. You have the opportunity to purchase an INR 99 voucher, which gives you an INR 850 discount on a one-way ticket, or an INR 199 voucher, which gives you an INR 1800 discount on a roundtrip. [Edit: Readers tell me you need INR 8000K worth of ticketing to be able to use it, something not stated in the T&C] The vouchers are one-time use only, and generated instantaneously and delivered to your email. However, to use…
Air Asia India all set to launch
Over a year back, I wrote about Air Asia’s launch in India, along with the Tata group. Things have moved a lot since then, and Air Asia India went through a series of regulatory clearances over the past ten months or so. There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, in the sense that the existing airlines did not want to have a new player amongst them, so they banded under Federation of Indian Airlines to try and stop access to India for this 3-way joint venture. A few weeks ago, they received their first plane, VT-ATF from Airbus, and on May 1 and 2, they conducted their proving flights, where the staff and the regulatory officials flew as…
Great Summer Fares 2: Air India offering INR 35K+ fares to Italy
Yesterday, I wrote about the 30K fares to Paris on Jet Airways, which I think is a very good fare to inspire you to visit the City of Lights. There is also British Airways, which is doling out vouchers for you to apply for your visa and giving you a discount accordingly. I wrote a few days back about Air India’s launching flights from Delhi to Milan and Rome. This will be a Boeing 787 flight, which will stop at both the cities, and do a circular route back home. While Air India has not started selling this flight on their own website, they seem to be offering great fares from anywhere in India to Milan/Rome, at a flat price…
Great Summer Fares: INR 30K Jet Airways to Paris/book before May 9
There are some pretty good deals out there in case you all are looking to travel to Europe later this year and have still not planned out your vacations. First destination, Paris. I’ve written about the Jet Airways flight between Mumbai and Paris, which is starting operations from May 14, 2014. Initially, this flight is planned for 4 days a week on an Airbus 330-200, and as of end June the flight will become a daily flight. Now, initially Jet Airways was offering this flight at INR 45K for economy tickets. Now, they are offering special fares which you can book for INR 30K all inclusive for travel between Mumbai/Paris and back in economy on www.jetairways.com or even via GoIbibo,…
