Today is the last day of the Jet Airways 15000 bonus JPMiles promotion, which means, if you book a ticket today for travel through April 2018, you are assured 15000 JPMiles for a roundtrip in your JetPrivilege account, good for a business class ticket. Like I wrote here, it is a great promotion, and if you have plans for next year, you should book your tickets today itself. So book Jet Airways for your international trip if it works for you!

While the promotion does not explicitly limit itself to Jet Airways website, there were quite a few reasons to book directly, as it worked for me. Let me elaborate:

1. Smartbuy provides you 10X points, but it puts you in the lowest fare class available. Given this is travel in a future date, availability on the Deals fare is almost a given. But I did not want to book in Deals but in Saver Class, so I passed along SmartBuy to book on the Jet Airways website. Why wouldn’t I want the lowest fare you ask? Because for a couple of thousands more, I was going to be able to get a confirmed upgrade for two people. In exchange for INR 5000 that I may have paid extra over two tickets, I got at least 5X the value (Tickets cost INR 40K roundtrip, and lowest cash tickets in business class on the same sector is going at INR 220K right now)
2. The 24-hour free change/cancellation rule which is offered by Jet Airways. As soon as I booked the ticket, I realised I’d made a date error. I could cancel or reschedule the ticket within 24 hours for free. Since it was only a few minutes prior, I managed to change the ticket in a jiffy without having to pay extra. Had it been Smartbuy or any other vendor, I was sure to pay a few thousand per ticket to make the change and a fare difference as well. That would have been an expensive mistake.

My maths, of course, would not justify the answer fully, but I will put it out for you. And for the record, I did come out ahead:

• Ticket if booked via Smartbuy would have cost INR 17500 for one passenger (Platinum tier members)
  • Bonus JPMiles: 15000 JPMiles
  • Miles/Cashback from HDFC: 5834 HDFC Miles (assuming I booked with HDFC Bank Diners Black)
  • Miles for flight: 1200 JPMiles (25% Miles bracket)
  • Tier Bonus: 900 JPMiles
  • Total: 22934 Miles per passenger
• Ticket, if booked directly on JetAirways.com, have cost INR 19500 for one passenger (Platinum tier members)
  • Bonus JPMiles: 15000 JPMiles
  • Miles from HDFC: 3120 HDFC Miles (Booked on JetPrivilege HDFC Bank Diners Credit Card)
  • Miles for flight: 3650 JPMiles (75% Miles bracket)
  • Tier Bonus: 2737 JPMiles
  • Online Booking Bonus: 500 JPMiles (2 sectors)
  • Total: 25000 Miles per passenger

I’m curious to hear what would have you done had you been in my position? I acknowledge the date change was not something I would have accounted for had it never happened, but I was lucky it did happen that I changed a ticket for free.

If you are planning any holidays or work travel next year, do check out this amazing promotion from 9W