Etihad has been undergoing a secret makeover for months, but they don’t make a secret of it when they are ready. As a 11-year young airline, I really love their luxury product in the First Class, however, they’ve been upping the game with their new cabin products, including the Residence which they will launch on their A380 later this year. Not just that. There has been a lot of discussion around the interwebs of a new livery that would come in on the new planes. I absolutely love the old one, but the new livery was just introduced a couple of days back on the A380 that Etihad has on order… And then just a short while back, on the…
About Ajay
Do Hyatt properties in India do a good job at delivering benefits?
File this under the section of rants. I’ve been in and out of work trips over the past couple of weeks, and I really needed a break from minding my own business, so I decided to check into the Hyatt hotels in Mumbai for some rest and recuperation. I’ve just checked out of the Grand Hyatt Mumbai, and checked into the Hyatt Regency Mumbai. Now, while I’ve had some superb experiences with Hyatt properties around India, I’ve begin to realise they are not all made equal. While the Park Hyatt Goa Resort and Spa, consistently makes me feel special and good about holding on to Hyatt’s Diamond Tier, the Hyatt Pune also did an above and beyond job by upgrading…
Reminder: 4 more days to get Citibank PremierMiles referrals
Earlier this month, I’d put out information about a great referral offer that was being run by Citibank for existing PremierMiles card holders, who can refer their friends and family for new Citibank PremierMiles credit cards. The referrer gets 5000 PremierMiles for each successful application they make, and this is capped at 5 PremierMiles cards referrals per card member. For taking up on this offer, the referrer has to generate and send out custom email links by September 30, 2014, while the receiver of the referral offer has up to October 31, 2014 to apply using that link and get approved for the credit card. In case you choose to apply for the card, you get 10000 PremierMiles in the…
Air Asia India coming to Mumbai?? Await super low fares
In what may be one of the first big change of strategies for Air Asia in India, they seem to have decided they cannot look away from the Indian metros. Air Asia India, when they launched earlier this year, had decided to focus on tier 2 markets, and open new routes. And hence, they’ve been operating flights from Bangalore to Goa, Chennai and Kochi, and very recently to Chandigarh and Jaipur. I’d almost given up hope on flying Air Asia in India, since they don’t cover my home airport, which is Mumbai. Until yesterday when Mr. Tony Fernandes, the big man at Air Asia, announced his intentions to be flying out of Mumbai, soon. In Incredible India.bombay is changing by…
SPG partners with JetPrivilege as transfer partner
Starwood’s loyalty program SPG has gone ahead and added a transfer partner which could be of benefit for those who like their Jet Airways miles. Just this morning, they’ve announced their partnership with Jet Airways, which means you can now transfer Starwood points 1:1 into Jet Airways JetPrivilege program. But 1:1 is not a very interesting option for me since I value SPG Starpoints more than Jet Airways miles. However, just like with other programs where SPG Starpoints transfer into, you can transfer in multiple of 20,000 points, and you get a bonus of 5,000 miles added to your transfer from SPG. So, while 19,999 Starpoints = 19,999 JPMiles, 20,000 Starpoints = 25,000 JPMiles. You can transfer upto 79,999 Starpoints…
Double miles on Etihad flights by JetPrivilege / Etihad Guest
Etihad is trying to be a prominent player in India, and in this regard, they are working out as hard as they can to get an uptick on traffic from India. Considering they now majorly own the JetPrivilege program, they in a way, JP Miles are also a sort of Etihad currency. Etihad is offering double miles in the JetPrivilege program, or the Etihad Guest program, if you book your tickets between September 22 and October 6, 2014 and travel between September 23, 2014 to December 15, 2014. To participate in this promotion, you need to register beforehand using your Etihad/JP number, at this link. The promotion is valid for Etihad Airways flights on any destination on the Etihad Global…
3 Tips for being better Economy Class travellers
I’ve just been on the road for the past few weeks. Like I earlier mentioned, I’d had to hop on a plane to go around Europe about 15 days back, and then followed it up with a trip to the USA over the last weekend. As a result, I did fly about 31,000 butt-in-seat miles over the past 2 weeks, and I am maybe in a state of jet lag right now, since I’ve only gotten 3 hours of sleep in my bed and I am back to a state of work now. A part of these trips was in business class, where I managed to clear upgrades. Another part was in premium economy, but for the most part, I…
Hello Vegas, Thank You Vegas, Bye Vegas
This has been an absolutely fantastic month in terms of going places. Earlier in the month, after I found my way out of the anxious spot that the Brits put me in, I managed to go over a lot of cities in a short span of time. And once I got back, it was time to prepare for Vegas. Which essentially meant I was going to travel another 10,000 miles to meet the good folks at the House of Miles, and my BoardingArea fraternity of bloggers. While last year, I treated myself to Etihad First and Singapore Airlines All-Business class redemptions to be at the conference, this time around, I chose to be in the back of the bus on…
Air India status upgrades via SBI Card are back
A few days ago, I reported that the promised tier upgrades and status matches for Air India, which are available via their co-branded card with SBI were not going through. There was either a technology problem, or there was a snap of relationships between both parties. We don’t know. However, I’ve been hearing since yesterday days, that people have started to get their upgrade confirmations via email, for status earned via spend on Air India. This looks like it is sorted now. However, for me personally, something seems to be off, as my account is locked out. Which definitely points towards a technology upgrade of some sorts that may have happened at the back end. For those of you who…
Back in town!
I’ve had a crazy week at work, and this has led to no posts this week. Like I mentioned earlier this week, I sort of believed that the Brits would commit to efficiency, however they did not. So, I had a delayed start to a long week of a work trip. When I was sure that I was good to go, I did make the trip, and here was the routing. I did all of these segments in 4 days, apart from the zillion work commitments which took me there, and yes, there was another 6-7 hours of driving which you of course do not see because this is an airline map. I flew Jet Airways on the way to…
When the visa dragons decided to red tape me
I write this post from the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2 lounge, where I am finally comfortable after a long few days of feeling like kicking myself in the backside. You will perhaps read it after a few hours when I will be airborne. You see, I was trying to be loyal to the Royal airline (i.e., the British Airways), and for this, I need to get a visa every now and then, even to transit through the UK to go to a Schengen country. God help me with why do I need a visa for transit to Schengen countries, when I don’t need one to travel to the USA, Australia and some other places via the UK. The visa costs…
