Uber is getting up and ready around India and has launched their services in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi in 2013. Mumbai will be their next destination. Uber, being an on-demand car service, does not require prior reservation. You just flip your smartphone out of the pocket, and order an Uber Black car. The app tells you the expected waiting time, which is usually 5-10 minutes, and then you have a high-end car, typically a Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda or Volvo sedan picking you up. You don’t really need to pay the driver in cash, because your credit card is automatically billed for your trip. If you want to add a tip, you can just log into your Uber Account to…
About Ajay
SpiceJet’s Corporate Frequent Flyer offer gets you free tickets
January to March is the traditional lean season for business travel in India, and everyone comes up with ways and means to pump up travel. SpiceJet has released the details for a new promotion they have launched for companies who are enrolled with their Corporate Benefits program. Their Corporate Benefits program is where SpiceJet ties up with corporate customers and offers them: Corporate fares Volume based Incentive. Complimentary Snack on board Flexibility in cancellations and rescheduling amongst other features. Sign-up is not online, but you have to connect with a SpiceJet RM to enrol. Coming to the Corporate Frequent Flyer offer, very simply stated, they offer you the following freebies: 1 Free One Way ticket for every 6 booked &…
My chat with DeltaPoints
Recently, DeltaPoints interviewed me for his Fireside Chat series. Here is an excerpt on Hotels in India: India has some great hotel chains of its own, such as the Taj and the Oberoi groups, which went on to build hotels across the world after building luxury properties around India. Also, Aman is owned by an Indian company at the moment. The chains have realized that they need to step up their presence in India, and are now starting to work on expanding presence here for the past few years. I see announcements of 30 or 50 new properties by next 3 years by Starwood, Hilton and others in India every now and then. So, over a period of time chains…
ICICI & Citibank PremierMiles mileage earning changes for 2014
I wanted to put out this post so that I could remind all of you of certain changes that are supposed to kick in as of January 1, 2014 for Citibank PremierMiles and ICICI Bank Jet Airways credit cards. Citibank PremierMiles had waived off the cap of INR 5,00,000 per annum on Airline tickets spend to earn Accelerated mileage (10 PremierMiles/INR 100 spend) last June as a special promotion. However, this promotion was valid only till December 31, 2013. From January 1, 2014, any airline spend as defined below, will earn 10 PM/INR 100 spend till you reach the limit of INR 5,00,000 for the year, and then you earn 4 PM/INR 100 for airline spends on an on-going basis as…
Peeping into 2014 for the Indian skies
I’m back at my desk early this morning thinking and all excited about how 2014 would shape up for work, personal life and my travel plans. As an aviation geek, of course, I am looking forward to trying out new products in the skies and trying to decide what goals should I work towards in 2014. This year might just be a very exciting year for Indian aviation. Here is why: Air India might get accepted into the Star Alliance this year. Air India has been trying to get into the Star Alliance for a long time. After much back and forth, last month, they got invited to join the Star Alliance the second time over. Whether they will join…
It might be a good time to sign up for the LifeMiles program
As the year draws to a close, I’m trying to wind down for the next few days. But I am also taking this time to reflect on my travels this year and plan out travels for the coming year. And my advice is, if you do not have an account with Avianca’s LifeMiles program, you should get one now. Avianca is a South American airlines recent entrant to the Star Alliance, namely in June 2012, and their award chart is a very reasonable one for those who would want to fly premium cabins. Star Alliance has multiple airlines flying out of India, namely Thai, Singapore Airlines, United, Swiss, Lufthansa, Austrian, South Africa Airways, amongst others. A lot of these airlines…
Reminder: 4 days to get 20% bonus on conversion to JPMiles
Jet Airways has been running a lucrative 20% bonus on conversion of your points to JPMiles for a while now. It comes and goes every now and then. In the current avatar, the following banks/loyalty program points are being converted to miles with 20% bonus: American Express Citibank India/UAE (ex PremierMiles issued in India) HDFC Bank HSBC IndusInd Bank Kotak Payback Punjab National Bank SBI Card Standard Chartered Bank (India/UAE) Tata Cards RBS Additionally, there is a promotion on conversion of Hotel loyalty points into JPMiles as well, which will expire on 31 December 2013 as well. Not the greatest, in my belief, however, some of you might want to use it to top off your JP accounts as well.…
The hidden traps of having the Air India SBI Credit Cards
I somehow do hate it when various companies do not give full disclosure on their products. The flavour of the season has been the Air India SBI Credit Card, where the issuing company took a lot of time to come out with the first set of cards. Check out my post a few weeks back, where I discussed the launch of the card, which is also now being used by SBICards as a customer problem resolution centre of sorts with stock replies! Now a couple of things I could not find out on the website, or I was not informed about when I was signing up for the credit card. First and foremost, when a credit card company states that…
Jet Airways launches an iOS app
One of the perennial cribs I have had with Indian airlines has been the lack of apps on the various smartphones. These are required these days purely from the purpose of keeping up with the life on the go. Jet Airways started to roll out apps for various smartphones earlier this year, and went with the Android app in September. They promised an iOS app soon, and it seems it turned up on Christmas. I downloaded the app today, and the functionality seems to be similar to the app on the Android platform. You can book flights, check flight status, log into your JP account and check your account activity and so on… However, I also found it lacking in…
Hilton Premium Club (India) offering Special Membership Packages till Dec 31
Hilton, apart from the HHonors program, also runs the Hilton Premium Club product in some countries, including India. The Hilton Premium Club is a dining program essentially, where the Hilton chain offers to discount your dining bills at their restaurants, all the way up to 50%. Hilton properties in the following cities offer this program: Chennai: Hilton Chennai Mumbai: Hilton Mumbai International Airport Delhi: Hilton Garden Inn Saket Gurgaon: DoubleTree by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn Baani Square Pune: DoubleTree by Hilton Pune Chinchwad The following benefits are usually available (each hotel customizes them a bit): Complimentary Spouse Card Dining benefits (50% off for 2 diners, 33% off for 3 diners, 25% off for 4 diners, 20% off for 1 diner…
Reminder: 1 week to register for the Citibank “Double your miles” promotion
In the beginning of November, I had written about the Double your Miles Promotion that is available on Citibank PremierMiles credit cards issued in India. Under the current version of the promotion, the top 5,000 spenders for the period November 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014 would be eligible for double PremierMiles (upto 50,000 PremierMiles), which would be credited to their account by March 15, 2014. However, this is an ‘opt-in’ promotion, and hence you need to pre-register by 31 December 2013 to be able to take part in the promotion. Do note, that regardless of what date you register, your spends between November 1, 2013 and January 31, 2014 would count to decide the winners. Do look out for…
