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.

More articles by Ajay »

A good Klout score is all you need to get into Cathay Pacific’s SFO F Lounge

I’m assuming everyone of you readers reading this has some sort of online social identity via Facebook, Google+ or Twitter. Klout is a site which measures your social influence by looking at all sorts of factors such as number of followers, number of likes on your post and others. They announced an interesting deal with Cathay Pacific yesterday, where a Klout score of 40 or upwards allows Klout users to access the recently-opened Cathay Pacific First and Business Class Lounge in San Francisco. Earlier than today, only F & J customers of the airline, and oneworld elites flying a oneworld-member airline could be the only ones who could access the lounge. Under the terms of the deal, anyone who complies…

Continue Reading »

Is Le’Club Accor also now planning a summer promotion?

This is downright the season of sales and promotions and one of those times which will really keep the frequent traveller very busy. After the Club Carlson giveaway which should debut very soon, it also seems that the Le’Club Accor, the renamed loyalty program of the Accor Hotels chain is also getting ready to announce a new promotion. Here is a little announcement that turned up on their Facebook page a short while back: Like Gary at View From The Wing points out, it is pretty easy to get Platinum Status with this one, so get ready with the Platinum Status just incase you need to make a stay with them for getting some miles and bonus points! Related Posts:…

Continue Reading »

Radisson Big Night Giveaway is coming back on 15th May!

When MommyPoints first posted the speculation about this, I could not believe my eyes! An eye-popping 50K points again? But Radisson is now confirming that the Big Night Getaway is going to be back in a week. I got this screenshot above when I went looking on the website, and it gave away all the right clues. Last year, on my EXP challenge Mileage Run to the US, I stayed one night at the Radisson Blue Chicago, and got the 50K points in my Club Carlson Account! The details should come up during the day sometime, but right now, things are fuzzy about what will be the number of points, and how many people will be eligible this time around.…

Continue Reading »

Hilton’s Great Getaway Sale coming back 10th May?

No, I am not dreaming things up this Sunday. Here is what I found on the Hilton website while I was poking around and making some reservations! While this sale is not announced yet, but looks like Hilton is getting ready to announce the next big sale (upto 40% off) in the USA and Asia Pacific, with the sale period being 10th May to 23rd July 2012 and the stay period being 17th May to 30th September 2012. In Europe, weekend discounts will continue till 31st Dec 2012. As per the Terms & Conditions, here are the discounts available: North & South America: 15-20% discounts on best available rates Asia Pacific Region: Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand hotels offering 33% off…

Continue Reading »

Sunday Plastic: The American Express Gold Charge Card

I’ve been planning to start a review of all the travel credit cards in India for a while now, but various things have kept me busy to be able to commit some time to this. But, it is a go now and I hope to update it as frequently as possible. I will start the series with The American Express Gold Charge Card this week. I got this card when the benefits on the Kingfisher First American Express card were modified. American Express revamped the Gold Charge Card in 2011, and made it one of the most competitive charge card products in the Indian market. Except for people who get their company-sponsored American Express cards way back, people usually did…

Continue Reading »

Delta Airlines to discontinue partnership with Jet Airways

And Kingfisher Airlines as well, but that is not so important! Buddies in crime for a while, Delta Airlines is terminating its frequent flyer partnership with Jet Airways from 15th October 2012 as per an announcement put out on the Delta Skymiles website. While Jet and Delta both have had a reputation of their own as good airlines, both have had one big problem area where they could give each other a good fight, the worse redemption capabilities ever. This is where the parallels have been drawn all this while. According to this thread on FT, Delta fired Jet Airways because Jet had even more restrictive rules than them on redeeming rewards. I am sure they could not take that…

Continue Reading »

The Citibank Premier Miles Credit Card: It Works!

Last December I’d written about how I was mighty pissed about the Jet Airways Citibank Credit Card, since they key benefits were devalued. The upgrade vouchers were drying up and that was a key reason for me to keep the card. Keeping that in mind, I’d switched to the Citibank Premier Miles Credit Card, which enabled a more ‘secular’ earning and burning I felt. I could earn 10 PMs per INR 100 for airline-related spend made directly with the airline or via a special portal called premiermiles.co.in. This is still better than earning 8 JPMiles per INR 100 for booking tickets only on Jet Airways, since I get 10 JP Miles if I chose to! On top of that, I…

Continue Reading »

Lufthansa offering 2,000 discount codes for return flight bookings from India [May 31]

Lufthansa is offering 2,000 travellers the chance to get discount codes worth INR 2,500 valid for discounts on their next flight bookings from India to a Lufthansa destination. You must log onto this website to collect your coupon code. The deal produces a discount coupon which can be applied on your account when you are trying to make a booking from India to fly on Lufthansa to Europe or an onward destination, via lufthansa.com. You can download the coupon code and make bookings between 1st May 2012 to 31st May 2012, and travel can be valid till 31st December 2012. Also, they are offering one discount coupon per person during the entire promotion. They reserve the right to cancel your…

Continue Reading »

Japan Airlines becomes the first to fly the B787 to India

While Air India is preparing to receive its Boeing 787 Dreamliners from Boeing, which should be finally arriving somewhere in May 2012, Japan Airlines seems to have stolen the thunder from Air India by being the first airline to operate the 787 services to India. The picture you see above is from JAL’s 787 first approach at Delhi’s Airport. Japan Airlines recently received its Boeing 787 planes, and used the first one to start a Boston-Tokyo service which is a new route, with effect from May 1, 2012, they’ve also pressed this plane into service on the Tokyo-Delhi-Tokyo route, making JAL the first operator to bring the 787 planes to India commercially. There is good reason to believe this makes…

Continue Reading »