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.

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India just shrunk by 25% on the Jet Airways mileage map

I really thought this was a technical glitch but looks like this is not. Like I wrote a few days back, Jet Airways made a few changes to the JetPrivilege program in late March 2012. One of the main changes was the earning rate for domestic flights in India, where Jet Airways upgraded the program to offer 100% mileage credit to all domestic flights in India. Now, I really expected to earn 100% miles when this change happened but I was thoroughly confused over the past few weeks about the real offering here. Everytime I wanted to book a ticket, lets say BOM-DEL, I would be offered a 532 miles for travel, whereas the real distance between the two cities,…

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5%–10% Discounts on summer fares booked on Jet Airways international

Jet Airways has come up with a cocktail of discounts on various travel markets for the summer schedule. Since they don’t all show up in one place, I thought I’d round them up in one post and put it out for all of you here. Take note that all the discounts are on booking via JetAirways.com website: India: 9W is offering a 5% discount on the base fare booked to any Jet Airways destination in Business and Economy class for booking till May 7,2012. Bahrain: 10% discount on the fare booked on Bahrain-India flights in Business and Economy class for booking till April 30, 2012. Bangladesh: 7% discount on fares booked on connections from Dhaka to an international Jet Airways…

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Virgin Atlantic to launch a 3-class A330-300 to Delhi from July 2012!

As per a post put out on AirlineRoute.net, LHR-DEL will be getting a new bird i n the form of a 3-class A330-300 on the LHR-DEL-LHR route from 10th July 2012, replacing the older A340-300 planes. Service on the A330-300 will be configured to offer Economy, Premium Economy and the famous Upper Class service of Virgin Atlantic. The A340-300 will still continue to fly on the Saturday/Sunday service for the time being. London Heathrow – Delhi eff 10JUL12 Airbus A330-300 replacing A340-300 on 6 of 7 weekly serviceVS300 LHR2200 – 1100+1DEL 333 x6VS300 LHR2200 – 1100+1DEL 343 6 VS301 DEL1315 – 1755LHR 333 x7VS301 DEL1315 – 1755LHR 343 7 Virgin Atlantic is going big on the Indian market of late,…

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More speculation on where is the Air India 787 flying?

I’m reserving comment on the bailout of Air India till a little later when I can write a long post about it, but the big news is that the airline which taught Singapore Airlines the ropes of being a magnificent airline stays in business for the time being, on a $5.3 billion dole though to which my tax payments will generously contribute. Heck, I don’t even get miles for this generous contribution to someone else’s balancesheet ! Now, I’ve been interested in tracking the progress of the Air India 787 for a long time, and that they will get these 27 planes is now confirmed with the bailout as well. I had a good look at the planes in Hyderabad…

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Jet Airways offers 25% bonus on credit card conversions to miles till 31st May 2012

I seriously can’t believe my eyes that this one missed my eye. See, I am Jet Airways favourite child, so I never receive their mailers and I am supposed to figure out the entire JetPrivilege program on my own. And I’ve ignored this one for a month or so because some lazy copywriter Jet Airways employs at their office or their website office has the date written as 2011, so I just ignored! Anyways, the good news is that Jet Airways and the credit card partners feel generous and hence a 25% bonus on transfer/conversion of points to miles from any of their 15 credit card partner’s reward points into JP miles. And there are also conversion rewards for the…

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Air India offers 100% Bonus Miles on select domestic and international routes

As a part of the switch to the domestic schedule from 26th March onwards, Air India has made the following changes to its schedule and capacities: Added 3 new flights: Delhi – Bahrain – Delhi Visakhapatnam – Dubai – Visakhapatnam Hyderabad – Kolkata – Hyderabad In addition, services on the following routes have been increased: Delhi – Tokyo – Delhi : From 4x to 5x per week Delhi – Dammam – Delhi : From 2x per week to 7x flights Delhi – Riyadh – Delhi : From 2x per week to 3x per week Mumbai – Cochin – Mumbai : From 1x daily flight to 2x daily flights And while it was upto it, it upgraded its equipment on a…

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Birdwatch: Photo # 6 (Thai Airways)

Reader Sonal Gaurav sends in this picture of the Boeing 777-200ER parked at the Kuala Lampur International Airport. In the background you get to see the Malaysia Airlines B747 as well! Thank you Sonal Airline: Thai Airways Location: Kuala Lampur International Airport Airframe: Boeing 777-2D7 / HS-TJE If you want to share a picture of a plane, an airport, or anything aviation related, please send it across to aj@livefromalounge.com with the details and I’ll put it up here. Thank you! Live From A Lounge is also present on Facebook, Twitter and available via RSS. 0 5share1share6

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Holidaying in India? Taj offers Early Bird rates [Book by 15-Apr, stay by 30-Sep]

The Taj group of hotels, owners of some of the most iconic hotels such as the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai and Taj Falaknuma Palace Hyderabad, has brought out a new vacation promo at some of their properties at tourist hotspots in Kerala and Rajasthan. Wrapped under the Taj Holidays brand, it offers a package for stays and meals at some of their off-beat properties. The promo, available for a single- or a double-occupancy stay offers 2 nights of stay, breakfast + 1 day meal and a 20% discount on F&B across the properties participating in the offer (taxes inclusive). You can extend the stay on a pro-rata basis and the weekday/weekend rates offered are the same. None of the palace…

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JetPrivilege 20% discount on redemption pulled for international sectors

If I earned 1$ for everytime I picked up a mistake Jet Airways makes, I’d be a millionaire by now. A few days ago I wrote about the very generous Jet Airways redemption offer where all redemptions on Jet Airways metal, made online, were going to be priced at a 20% discount on miles. This offer was made to tie-in with the recent enhancements of the Jet Airways JetPrivilege program. As a part of the offer, all JetPrivilege redemptions made using the website jetairways.com would attract the discount. The offer page as well does not limit the benefit only to domestic flights (see screenshots below): For the first few days you could book tickets to go on international sectors with…

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