We all live in an ever changing world, right? Plans change all the time, but usually for business travellers. Once upon a time I did not make it to NYC in time because I had a flat tire on my plane. I had to spend a few days after trying to convince the hotel about the fact they should not charge for no show in that case. A few days ago, I was tossing and turning, trying to talk myself out of a Hyatt Diamond Trial. And I signed up anyways. Like a lot of my readers or followers on Twitter may have known, I’m back at the Park Hyatt Goa Resort and Spa later this week. These guys are…
About Ajay
A few more days to book Marriott 3-for-2 in India
A few months back, I had posted about a very good promotion offered by Marriott in India, where you could get 1 free night for every 2 paid nights at a Marriott hotel in India. The free night could be used in the same trip, or you could come back to the same hotel later and use the voucher separately (however, on a 2 night stay). At a later point of time, I discovered that the promotion is not just valid via Expedia, but also on directly booking with Marriott on their website. You need to use the Code SPJ to be able to get this offer. Here are the rate rules: Booking window 1st April to 31st August, 2014…
Your Citibank PremierMiles International Spends bonuses have posted
Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card was offering a 2x bonus on International Spends during the period May 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014. Here, for all your spends in International Currencies during this period, you got double the miles. So, for buying air tickets outside of India, you got 20 miles per INR 100 instead of 10 miles per INR 100, and regular spend got 8 miles per INR 100 instead of 4. I did take part in this promotion, and made good use of it over my travels in these months, however I recently converted my Citibank PremierMiles to Prestige, and hence left a lot of these miles on the table. I think I left about 6000 miles behind, but…
Jet Airways going full service again
A few hours after Vistara, the new full service airline from Tata/Singapore Airlines showed its first look, Jet Airways made an announcement, which sort of made their life come full circle. A few years ago (7!), Jet Airways bought out Air Sahara, and rebranded them to run them as JetLite. Then, during the economic recession a few years back, they figured people did not want to pay the fares of a full-service carrier, so they used the same planes to offer JetKonnect, an all-economy offering which did not serve food. Then, some years later they took away the JetLite branding and called all their non-full service operations JetKonnect. Complicated much? Yes. This has created a brand manager’s nightmare with so…
Tata SIA unveils its brand identity: Vistara
Last week, I discussed about the newest full-service carrier in India revealing its identity today. Just about an hour back, they confirmed what we discussed last week in this post. Today, at Hotel Taj Mansingh in Delhi, the new airline which will launch within the year came up with its new identity. Here is the logo, which is in the shape of a 8-pointed star, which is actually a maths symbol, called Yantra. The airline livery was also unveiled today, will have the purple as its brand colours with golden edges to go along. Here is the tweet which showcased the livery. Welcome to the world of limitless possibilities. Say hello to #Vistara pic.twitter.com/1w4VlR9Qhi — Vistara (@airvistara) August 11, 2014…
Flight Review: AI191 Mumbai–Newark, Air India, First Class
A friend and regular reader of the blog, Parag Mehta, recently took a First Class flight on Air India recently to travel between Mumbai and Newark, and I requested him for a Guest Post for the blog, since long haul Air India is not on my radar in the coming days. He came back flying Etihad First Class, booked on 9W miles, but try getting two trip reports from a busy investment professional You can read my review of EY F here. Over to you, Parag! I was planning a trip to New York for the longest time, and when the time came I looked at my pile of miles, and decided to try Air India and Etihad for the…
Vistara: Is this the Tata-SIA airline brand name?
Tata – SIA has been very guarded about the name of their airline, which will be known on Monday, August 11, 2014. The branding exercise is work in progress, and the airline executives like to say they have many options, and Vistara is just one of them. However, Tata’s PR is maybe trying to follow an Apple style leak based philosophy, where they may be spreading the word out at the last minute. Anyhow, when I put out the information about the brand launch yesterday, a reader Arpit Jain tweeted back with the name, and it seems like there is already a domain registered with the brand name as well: @LiveFromALounge @RNTata2000 So this seems to be the Airline’s domain…
Tata – Singapore Airlines Joint Venture to announce brand name on August 11, 2014
Tata/Singapore Airlines seems to be making good progress in getting the airline off the ground by the end of this year. They are right now working on fixing up the identity of the airline, and just yesterday, did announce that they will outsource ground handling to Air India. Via Mint: Tata-SIA Airlines Ltd, the joint venture (JV) between Tata Sons Ltd and Singapore Airlines Ltd, is pursuing an outsourcing model for its operations in India and has tied up with state-owned Air India Ltd to execute parts of the strategy before its expected takeoff in October. Air India will manage ground-handling and engineering services for Tata-SIA, said two executives at the national airline who spoke on condition of anonymity. The…
Manufactured Spending India: An opportunity to meet your spend limits
One of the key criteria that a lot of banks put out these days is to meet a certain amount of spend before you can have access to a bonus kitty of miles. The intention is to get the customers to spend a certain amount of money on the card in a certain period of time, and get them used to the card. Take for instance the following: Citibank PremierMiles wants you to spend INR 50,000 to be able to receive an extra 10,000 PremierMiles on a new application within the first 60 days. IndusInd wants you to spend INR 125,000 to be able to earn an extra 20,000 JPMiles within the first 100 days. SBI Air India Visa Signature…
Uber updates from India + Promocodes
I haven’t written much about Uber recently, after my not so great experiences with them in Mumbai. From being a daily customer, I’ve now become a 4-6 times a month customer of sorts while I am in Mumbai. But they have been doing some great stuff in the other Indian cities they operate in. First and foremost, Uber has launched UberX in India. Available in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi at the moment, UberX is the cheaper Uber, where instead of premium cars, they send you regular sedan class cars such as Maruti Swift Dzire or Toyota Innova your way. Since for me I just need a car to go from place A to B, I am pretty happy with the…
SPG offering credit / double points for India stays
Starwood is offering upto $50 credit for booking a stay in the Indian properties, along with the Maldives and Bangladesh ones. You need to reserve using the code CREBAR to be able to enjoy the promotion. Reservations using this booking code can be made till August 10, 2014 while the stays have to be completed by December 31, 2014. The room credit will be not applicable for adjusting against the room rate, but against services at the hotel, such as dining and spa. I checked up the rates, and the promotion is valid on flexible rates. For instance, the ITC Rajputana is offering rates of INR 8500 per night, and offering USD 25 credit, which could be good for a…
