The oneworld alliance and Kingfisher Airlines announced today that they had picked a date for the welcome of Kingfisher Airlines onboard the alliance, and February 10, 2012 onwards, IT will be a full member. This will make Kingfisher the first airline from India to head into an alliance, after Star Alliance and Air India quite did not work out as of July 2011. It is good news that despite its recent financial difficulties the airline will now be the 13th carrier to come on board the alliance. In 2010, British Airways had sponsored the application for Kingfisher to become a full member, and both have been working together on various parts of the partnership to close this to its logical…
About Ajay
5 Weeks to OWMD: Preparing for Seat 33A!
I am writing this post sitting in SFO, which is about 7,700 miles away from my normal daily posting schedule in BOM. But then, this is all a part of preparing for all the exciting things that are going to happen on the oneworld MegaDo in January 2012. Hence I am hoping the slight delay in posting from a new city will be excused. In the past week, 3 new passengers got on board the oneworld MegaDo charter. One of them was Pat, who takes away Randy’s seat on the charter. Her post was the lucky one amongst the over 77,000 posted on the thread which Randy started to give away his seat. Congrats Pat, and I hope to see…
130 hours to AA Executive Platinum
Living in India, a land of no airline alliances yet, I figure it was no point siding with an alliance just yet. Regular readers would observe that I’d fly Jet Airways most of the times to places I need to go to, since they service most key bases from India where I’d be expected to travel on work in Europe, USA and Asia. But, with the rapidly downgrading Jet Privilege program and the increasing difficulty with which I could get a seat or two for awards, I figured I’d have to change tack a bit. As a participant of the oneworld MegaDo in January, I was offered a status challenge on American Airlines which I gladly signed up for. The…
Jet Airways follows the Olive theory, axes the meal service bit-by-bit
I am aware that an airline executive once made the famous suggestion to nick off one olive from each meal served, and the airline saved about $40,000 on those olives per annum. I am writing this post 33,000 feet in the air on a BOM-DEL flight 9W 361. Here is a little game for you to play, the good old find the difference types: The first picture above you’ll see is from a BOM-MAA Jet Airways flight in April 2011, which was serving dinner. The next one is from today on the BOM-DEL route where I again was served dinner. Have you been able to find out about 5 differences between the two? Take your time. Now list down…
A flying palace: A private A380 with all the bells and whistles…
Imagine a 3- floor Airbus A380 with a private concert hall, a flying garage to park your Royce or Maybach, and a Turkish bath on separate floors. I’d name it a flying palace though you could call it by any other name. Word has it that a member of the Saudi Royal family is going to get one of these 0.5 billion USD luxury birds soon, to be able to retire their B747 they use right now. The Airbus airframe, with a list price of about USD 370 million, is being modified with expensive fittings of USD 170 million by the UK based design firm DesignQ, who helped Virgin Atlantic design the Upper Class Suite. The private jet will have …
Virgin Australia and Singapore Airlines alliance to launch in a week…
Alliances are not a matter of choice but a matter of need for airlines in Australia for a network that extends their own and gets them to serve flyers who want to travel all over the place. In the case of Qantas, they have the oneworld allliance by their side. But considering Virgin does not like getting into alliances, or at least not just yet, they have been working with an interlining strategy so far where they have a network of partners such as Etihad, Delta and Virgin Atlantic to complete their network.However, they now have an alliance with Singapore Airlines, which should be a gamechanger in feeding traffic to their domestic network from the hub of SIN. The alliance,…
Cathay Pacific to add Premium Economy seats from Q1 2012
Cathay is quite easily a very likeable airline, and I love them for all the shorthauls I do when travelling around Hong Kong on work trips. However, now they are giving me a reason to try out their long haul product, with the launch of the Premium Economy Class in March 2012. These will be introduced first on the routes to Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver and New York, followed by London, LA, San Francisco and continental Europe. The announcement made to members of the Marco Polo Club loyalty program detail the added benefits of the Premium Economy class which is, much more than just the seat! According to Cathay, there will be a separate priority check-in and priority boarding over Economy…
Reader Question: “Which is the best program to credit Indian flights to”?
Reader Romina pinged me with a question last week, and I thought it was a good question to address here for everyone. Her question was… Hi AJ, I’m going to India, with miles, of course, but I have to buy two domestic legs and was wondering if you have any suggestion. …. If I buy the tickets, what is the best international airline to credit the miles from KingF, jet airways and air india? … I believe this question is something which a lot of travellers to India would have on mind. My answer to her was in terms of American programs, but I’ll drop in a word with regard to other programs too. Indian airlines are not yet…
Delta/Amex offer Status Match and $ 200 Gift Card for US Readers (till January 31, 2012)
This was more a chance discovery but I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to know. American Express and Delta have come up with a wonderful offer, although targetted, which provides a very easy way to get Delta status all the way upto Feb 2013 with one round trip flight till Jan 2012. All you have to do, is to register an eligible American Express Card on this website, pop-in your non-status Delta Skymiles number, book a round-trip on Delta which is not in the fare classes R/O/N/E, and you’ll be eligibile for a $200 Gift Card from Amex. Also, if you have elite status on another carrier, which was at least valid till December 2012, you’ll…
Hilton HHonors to offer 30% Reward points back on Premium Reward Stays
Hilton is lining up a slew of new offers these days, much like the other hotel chains. They recently came up with the HHonors Resort Stay offer, and now are, sort of, matching the Carlson offer to stay at their properties and get reward points back, though, with a caveat. Hilton has just introduced a new offer to book and stay on HHonor Premium Room Rewards, or on Points & Money redemptions, and get 30% of the HHonors Points back into their account a few weeks down the line. If you remember, Hilton revamped their program and downgraded most hotel redemptions a few months back by classifying almost every nook and cranny of their hotels as a Premium Room. So, now…
Finally, a credit card which earns me lots of miles in India!
I’ve been on the case for looking out for a GOOD mileage earning credit card out of India for a few years, but I think I finally have found one. Mileage earning is not a big phenomenon in India, at least not as much as the USA. However, for a few of us travel nuts who like to be in the know and optimise ‘travel well’ while still not paying a bomb, this is an important tool in the wallet. There are all sorts of travel cards in India now, but I was just not going to go out to sign up for a few for the heck of it. If mileage earning is based on spend, then I could…
