Air India largely has deployed an Airbus 320 series fleet on domestic operations, but these come in two varieties: All Economy and Economy + Business seating. The decision to make all economy seating happened a couple of years back when Air India found itself not being able to sell premium cabins on non-metro routes to the extent it wished it could. Anyhow, they are now trying to monetise the limited opportunity that exists on some of these routes, such as Delhi – Guwahati – Imphal, with the introduction of a Premium Economy class of service on these A320 serviced routes. The strategy is similar to European carriers, who create a business class section on intra Europe routes by blocking off…
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Citibank offering INR 2,500 referral for new PremierMiles Credit Cards
Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card is easily my go-to credit card, purely because of the flexibility it offers in terms of earning mileage for air travel (10 PremierMiles/ INR 100) and non-air travel related purchases (4 PremierMiles/INR 100). PremierMiles add up easily, and never expire. Not to forget, you have promotions like double miles every now and then. You can transfer them to 10 different airline or hotel loyalty programs, or use them to book tickets directly at www.premiermiles.co.in by redeeming them for INR 0.5 value per PremierMile spent. You can read my review here, from May 2012. You also get a limited number of trips to the lounge every quarter for domestic Indian Airports. Anyhow, Citibank has now taken the…
Yet another Air India 30 day sale till 6th Feb 2014
I might just decide to rename this blog to the deals site or something, with the number for fare sales that are out there these days, however, I’ll just try and keep up with the barrage flowing through. This morning, I noticed, Air India has brought out their recently running +30 days sale again, where the period of sale is between 4th February 2014 and 6th February 2014. Period of Travel is 3rd March 2014 onwards. Here are the details. While the details look sketchy here, when I pulled up some sample fares, it looked like it is a rehash of the recent 30% off sales. But the good news is, you do have some more days to book up…
100 Free Hyatt Gold Passport Points, till 15 February 2014
Hyatt Hotels is celebrating the Chinese Year of the Horse, and they are offering select participants a chance to add 100 Gold Passport points to their account on the occasion. While this is a targeted promotion, many have reported success without receiving the email about this, and the points credit pretty quickly into your account. All you got to do is to land up on the promo page, and punch in your Gold Passport number to get your 100 points credited to your account. While 100 points are not a lot, and you can’t do anything independently with them, they surely add to the pool and can be used for extending the validity of your Hyatt Gold Passport account. Related…
INR 40,000 Taj Vouchers for American Express Platinum Charge Card signup
American Express Platinum is one of the foremost cards from the privileges perspective around the globe, backed by the well-known American Express customer service. I remember when they launched the card in India about 6-7 years back, it was an invite-only product, with tonnes of privileges, but also some solid signup gifts such as Longines Watches & Membership Reward Points for signup, to justify the INR 50,000 + taxes membership fee per annum. Amex’s sole competitor in this lifestyle card space was the Citibank Ultima, which till last year, provided 50K JP Miles, 5 JP Upgrade vouchers and JetPrivilege Platinum status, however, the proposition got significantly diluted, and as a result, I personally cancelled my Citibank Ultima credit card recently…
$1450 business/first R.T. to the USA and back from Colombo
[Update: Deal now appears to be pulled] A new fare has emerged for travel from Colombo to Dallas/Fort Worth and back to Colombo, which includes Business Class on Sri Lankan/Etihad, First Class on Etihad and First Class on American Airlines, which is $1450 all inclusive. For positioning, Indians could always use a flight from Jet Airways or Sri Lankan, while other South East Asian nations should also not be hard to position. The fare is available for $1300 onwards, if you book Colombo – Abu Dhabi – Chicago – Dallas, but this would be an all business class fare. If you route yourself via Paris, you’d also get to experience the wonderful Etihad First class along the way, and get…
DGCA downgraded by FAA to Category II
In a not-so-surprise move by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), after their second review of the Directorate General of Indian Aviation (DGCA) in December 2013, they have downgraded the rating to Category 2, putting India in the same league as Ghana, Barbados and Bangladesh apart from some other countries (a total of 12). The inference of this is that the DGCA does not comply with the safety standards set by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Here is the list of FAA ratings in Excel Worksheet format. The implications of this are that there can be surprise checks on aircrafts of Indian carriers flying to the USA, and till the rating is brought back to Category 1, Air India and Jet…
Great Indian Fare Sale 2: SpiceJet, Indigo & GoAir offer 30% off
This morning, less than a week after the 50% off fare sales from all 5 domestic airlines Spicejet, Indigo, GoAir, Air India and Jet Airways/JetKonnect got over, Spicejet was back in the market with a second fare sale this morning, this time promising 30% off on weekday travel for booking 30 days out. Indigo matched the fares in a few hours. While I wrote this, GoAir came into the mix as well. [Update: Air India and Jet Airways seemed to have joined this sale as well on the night of Friday 31 January 2014] The key terms and conditions on this one as follows: Book between 31 January 2014 and 2nd February 2014 for +30 day travel upto 15 April…
Uber launches in Chennai + last day for double referral signup
While I’ve been waiting for Uber to come to my city of Mumbai, Uber has gone ahead and launched in Secret Uber mode (Beta) in Chennai last evening. This is the fourth city they’ve launched in India, which means Mumbai does not get the privilege of Uber in January 2014. The other cities are Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad. Here is how my first experience with them went in Delhi. Now, Uber in Chennai can be ordered via the smartphone app for iOS and Android phones, and all you need is a credit card number fed into your phone app to be able to bill the rides to, since Uber works cashless and you don’t have to pay when you release…
Lufthansa considering bringing the A380 to India this year
While the initial reaction from most carriers about the new rules for the A380 in India was muted, airlines seem to be now coming out of the hiding to make a commitment to the Indian market, or so it seems. While Singapore Airlines seems to have a low-hanging fruit because of their recently concluded bilateral negotiations with India, it now seems that Lufthansa has also made up their mind to introduce the A380 in India within the year. Christopher Franz, the CEO of Lufthansa, made this statement earlier this week to Reuters: We are interested to use the A380 also for the major Indian markets The press also notes that Lufthansa planned to use the jet in India but the…
Jet Airways adding flights to Abu Dhabi from Bangalore & Hyderabad, offers 10% discount
Jet Airways is on an expansion spree to Abu Dhabi. After it’s Chennai – Abu Dhabi launch, and is adding two more flights to Abu Dhabi from Hyderabad and Bangalore, from March 1, 2014. These flights will be on 737 aircraft, and the schedule is as below. To kick off these sectors, Jet Airways is offering a 10% off on economy as well as business class tickets on these routes, only via its website www.jetairways.com. Unfortunately, this discount is not stackable with the 5% base fare discount offered by Jet Airways on its co-branded credit cards. Related Post: Jet operationalizes the Abu Dhabi scissor hub, to reintroduce JFK Join over 2600 people who check-in daily to find out about the…
