Hunting down a fare just became cheaper. Google Flights, which is a visual interface offered by Google to meta-search for flights, is now available in India at www.google.co.in/flights. The beauty of this interface is that you will be able to now search for flights by date, date ranges, calendar, location and even your budget for a random trip. Dates: Google Flights offers a calendar feature, where you can see one-way or round trip pricing for various sectors across days in one go. Take for instance this round-trip pricing on BOM-DEL for end of January. You can click on the graph, and customise by duration. You will get options to see various flights by fare and by time as well. Clicking…
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Review: UK 943, Delhi-Mumbai, Vistara, Economy (Guest Post)
Ever since I wrote about my inaugural flight experience on Vistara, one of the question asked the most was, is this the usual everyday experience? So, I requested permission from a friend and reader Vishal Mehra, to be able to reproduce his experience of flying Vistara Economy from Delhi to Mumbai here.
Air India kicks off 2015 with sale on India fares
I just read the news a while back, where Air India was stated to have made a profit after a long time. And then, they declared a sale to celebrate the event it seems! Air India has on offer a Spring Sale, where they are offering full-service flights around India on narrowbody planes, and widebodies too, for incredibly low prices, starting INR 1,557 onwards. You are going to be able to book tickets all the way till 18 January 2015, and valid for travel from 16 January 2015 to April 30 2015. The tickets are valid for fare class E, so do look out for the E fare class on the flights. Some of the deals are pretty sweet, like…
PremierMiles Transfer: British Airways Avios
PremierMiles Devaluation w.e.f. February 1, 2015 PremierMiles to Etihad Guest conversion PremierMiles to Air India Flying Returns conversion PremierMiles to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer conversion I slacked up a bit on the PremierMiles conversion series due to Vistara’s launch last week, and an otherwise busy calendar. But let’s get cracking once again. One of the most interesting and useful points in the oneworld alliance are those of British Airways. A few years ago, they started calling them Avios, and this is the mileage currency used by British Airways as well as Iberia at the moment. Avios transfers frequently offer bonuses to credit card partners, at least once a year, but we haven’t seen any for 2015 at this point of time…
Back at the Lounge: January 11, 2015
The last 10 days have been interesting in the points & miles & travel space. Here is a review of all that was covered at LiveFromALounge in the past 10 days. I hope you haven’t missed anything! Vistara: I travelled on the Inaugural Vistara flight UK890 on January 9, 2015. Here is my review of the Vistara Experience. Vistara dropped prices a couple of days before taking flight. I wonder why. Airline Alliances: Check out my piece for the Conde Nast Traveller India, where I discuss the options for Indian travellers while choosing their airline affinities. Miles & Points: Citibank PremierMiles is changing the transfer options from 1:1 for PM -> Airmile transfer, to 2PM:1AirMile with effect from February 1,…
Review: UK 890 Delhi–Mumbai, Vistara, Economy
Vistara, the new full-service Indian carrier that is a joint venture between Tata Group of India and Singapore Airlines, took to the skies yesterday. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, since Vistara has promised to keep differentiated service as a cornerstone of their strategy. Like I said when Vistara made an initial product reveal, Vistara is hoping to be the Louis Vuitton of Indian Aviation. At the event, I wondered if they really were doing justice to their product with the reveal, because everything they said looked like just words then. Curious to find out if Vistara was all that it promised to be, I had to be on one of their planes. The…
New Year Resolution: Choose the right airline alliance
India is just about getting started with the airline alliances. But in the last year itself, it saw two of them. Air India joined the Star Alliance and Jet Airways joined Etihad Airways Partners, by virtue of having an investment from them. Conde Nast Traveller commissioned me to write a comparison about the various airline alliances in existence, and how can an Indian traveller navigate through them. I did a brief snapshot, which was published in the magazine and has now been reproduced online as well. You can read it here. I hope this is of use to all of you. If you have questions, happy to answer here or on email. Join over 4000 people who check-in daily to…
What is forcing Vistara’s hand on fares
Vistara is the newest carrier that will take wings tomorrow, and as per the positioning they’ve wanted to make in the Indian aviation market, I’ve labelled them the Louis Vuitton of Indian aviation. When Vistara opened for ticketing on 19 December 2014, they were out to make a statement. The tickets were positioned on the expensive brackets, and I booked a ticket at INR 11,428 including taxes and fees to be on the first flight. While I don’t have screenshots, I can promise you the pricing was rich and most flights on the DEL-BOM leg were pricing at least at INR 7500 in economy, and so on. If I can make a bold statement, they were outpricing themselves from the…
Vistara Economy on the inaugural for INR 6500
Vistara is all set to take wings a couple of days down the line, with a special inaugural flight UK 890 in between Delhi and Mumbai on January 9, 2015. I’ve covered the first look of the product and the loyalty program Club Vistara in detail a few days ago. When the reservations for Vistara opened, the initial flights were going at a very expensive price. Economy tickets were selling at INR 11000 for DEL-BOM and so on. However, it turns out that now the tickets are selling at a much cheaper price. If you would like to have the Vistara experience, feel free to book yourself a ticket on the inaugural. Here are the prices: These are round…
Premiermiles Transfer: Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
PremierMiles Devaluation w.e.f. February 1, 2015 PremierMiles to Etihad Guest conversion PremierMiles to Air India Flying Returns conversion Singapore Airlines is one of the first transfer partners I want to cover for your PremierMiles conversion options from outside of India. I’ve converted PremierMiles to KrisFlyer miles a couple of times, once to get on one of the Ultra Long Haul LAX-SIN flights by Singapore Airlines in Business Class (on their all business class product), before they discontinued those. Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer is a great way to get award tickets on Singapore Airlines own metal, since availability is much more to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Members as compared to other Star Alliance member programs, who hardly get any availability for Singapore Airlines’…
Hyatt Gold Passport offering 2500 bonus points per stay in India
Hyatt is out there pushing their business in India. They have done a couple of 50% off sales last year, and another promotion is now active to promote the Gold Passport program across the country. For all stays that are materialised between December 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015, which have the offer code India at the time of booking, you get a 2500 point bonus from Hyatt Gold Passport. Here are the details of the promotion as per Hyatt. The offer code is valid for all the 21 Hyatt properties around India. Last month, when the promotion was announced, I was under the false impression that the application of this promocode would inflate the rates for the stay. However,…
