About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Flight Review: AI 687 Mumbai-Delhi, Air India, Business Class (B777)

by Ajay 3 Comments

a plane taking off from the ground

A couple of days back, I was supposed to take a Mumbai – Delhi flight, to come back to family for the holidays. Since I kind of like wide body planes and the new GVK Lounge at Terminal 2, I booked myself on AI 101 which does BOM-DEL-JFK, but is a late night flight arriving into Delhi about midnight. However, last minute, I realised Air India was also operating a BOM-DEL flight in the afternoon on their 777s. I guess this is a plan for them to be able to clear the winter rush, as well as accommodate all the people who may get displaced from other flights due to fog. So, I looked at the price, and it was…

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Last minute holiday plans? Tips to pay reasonable fares (in India)

by Ajay 11 Comments

On Sunday, I was at the Mumbai Airport Terminal 1A, flying over to Delhi for the holidays. I had a busy year, and I am still not done with it, with social and family commitments to come up for the next few days. Anyhow, the rush at the airport made me realise how many people were heading all over the place: some to visit family, some on vacation and so on. It may also be that a lot of plans are going belly up because Spicejet is in deep trouble. However, I see, at least on metro segments, all hope is not lost to get home on a reasonable fare. In fact, I myself cancelled a late night ticket on…

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Vistara Unveils their A320 product and experience: First Look

by Ajay 4 Comments

They intend to be the Louis Vuitton of Indian aviation, my words, not theirs. Just this morning, I was over at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi to witness the unveiling of the in-flight product and experience from the latest Indian airline waiting to take to the skies, Vistara. It was an interesting presentation, but I did not come back with much that they promise to do which only they do, and not others. Apart from the Premium Economy cabin class of course. The Product: Like I mentioned a couple of days ago, Vistara will be the first Indian airline to carry a Premium Economy product. The plane will be a 3-class configuration. Business Class: Vistara takes pride in a…

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Lounge Review: Air India Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 1A

by Ajay Leave A Comment

a room with white couches and a glass table

Just yesterday, I flew over to Delhi from Mumbai, yet again. I was originally scheduled to get into Delhi on AI101, which is perhaps one of my favourite flights given it gives me access to the Terminal 2 GVK Lounge, and I get to fly a Boeing 777-300ER between the 2 hour Mumbai Delhi segment (the flight further heads to New York from Delhi). However, given that it is winters and Delhi has a massive fog problem, and I did not want to really really get into home middle of the night, I decided to change my plans. I now was going to depart from terminal 1A, from where Air India operates, and this meant I had access to the…

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JetPrivilege offering 2-3x bonus miles Jan-Mar 2015

by Ajay 1 Comment

Jet Airways clearly has a great tool in its fight against all the incoming new carriers, and it is called JetPrivilege. So yesterday, when Vistara announced the launch of their operations on the Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Ahmedabad and Mumbai-Ahmedabad sectors as of January 9, 2015, Jet Airways hit back with some nice goodies to tell them who is the boss! Yes, Jet Airways flights on all these segments will earn double bonus miles in economy on all the sectors listed above, and triple in business class. These miles are apart from the tier and cabin bonuses for both these airlines. All flights booked before the promotion launch date also qualify. Join over 4000 people who check-in daily to find out about the…

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Club Vistara: India’s first revenue Frequent Flyer Program offers 500 points for signup

by Ajay 8 Comments

This is known by now, that Vistara is taking wings as of January 9, 2015 with a special Delhi-Mumbai flight. I also posted a while back about the inflight experience a bit. Now, lets come to Club Vistara, the frequent flyer program for the airline, which will be India’s first revenue-based frequent flyer program. Out here, we already guessed the name right a few months ago. The program will have 3 tiers: Club Silver Gold My guess, looking at the loyalty program’s dashboard is, that you need to earn 25,000 status points to get to Silver, and another 25,000 Status Points to be able to make it to Gold Tier. The benefits, are unknown and the website does not talk…

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Vistara’s seat details and in-flight dining revealed

by Ajay 3 Comments

While we did not have any information about Vistara till last night, the details have now started to roll in. For those of you who have not read this post about the initial details, do that now. Now, while there are no pictures of the seats, the description gives away enough: Business Class: 42 inches seat pitch and 7 inches seat recline extendable leg rest, foot rest, and height-adjustable headrest with wings​ soft and cuddly cushion on every seat to provide additional back support personal storage space at the side of the seat, for small items such as glasses, a tablet, etc. Premium Economy: 33 to 36 inches seat pitch 4.5 inches seat recline (except for the row with 36…

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All you need to know about Vistara (taking flight on January 9, 2015)

by Ajay 3 Comments

Vistara is all set to take to the skies. They received their Air Operator Permit earlier this week, and will be launching their first flight on the Delhi-Mumbai-Ahmedabad routes on January 9, 2015. Like I already mentioned before, the tailsign for Vistara will be UK. From whatever I have been able to gather at the moment, the inaugural flight will be UK-890 on BOM-DEL on January 9, 2015 at 12:30 PM from Delhi, arriving into Mumbai at 14:45 PM. Vistara will start operating with 2 planes (airbus A320-200s). Here is a primitive schedule for the first few days I could cobble together via the various OTAs: 09 January 2014 UK890 DEL1230 BOM1445 A320 UK895 BOM1655 DEL1905 A320 UK228 DEL1730 BOM1940…

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Spicejet flights grounded, to take off at 4 pm IST today

by Ajay 1 Comment

Spicejet, which has been facing an existence crisis, has been not exactly in the pink of health recently. They’ve started cancelling flights while returning planes, and then were asked to close in bookings to one month only by the Government of India. Just earlier this week they were knocking on the doors of Government of India to speak to them, and the government offered them the following way forward: Spicejet can now take bookings till March 31, 2015 Airports Authority of India would wait another fortnight for their payments Oil marketing companies who supply fuel to SG were asked to provide fuel on credit till December 31, 2014. They can raise short term loans of upto INR 600 Crores backed…

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JetPrivilege extending validity of miles for co-branded card holders

by Ajay 1 Comment

I just received a wonderful surprise from JetPrivilege in my email, something that maybe a lot of you would be receiving shortly or have already received as well. JetPrivilege just sent out an email stating that the validity of all my JetPrivilege miles was being extended from 3 years to 5 years. I wasn’t ever worried about their expiry due to my JetPrivilege Platinum status, but seems like I have more time now even in case I don’t have Platinum status anymore. The email states that you need to hold at least one active co-branded credit card to get yourself the 2 year extension of your mileage balance expiry. This means not just holding the card but having made at…

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IHG’s “Set Your Sights” promotion for Jan-Apr 2015 live

by Ajay 3 Comments

IHG is really the first one off the bat with their 2015 promotion, which is very similar to their customised promotions these days such as the Big Win. I gave a miss to their 2014 “Into the Nights” promotion as I focussed on getting my Hyatt Diamond status lined up for 2015. In hindsight, maybe it was good because IHG had problems executing the program at least in the period September – December 2014 with the Into the Nights promotion. Now, the next customized promotion is live for the first trimester of 2015, and it is called Set your Sights, and it is already live for registration. This time as well, everyone gets a promotion which is customized as per…

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