Back in February 2012, I had written a post about the plans Air India had to launch their Boeing 787 flights to go over to Australia, in a triangular flight to Sydney and Melbourne. The timing aspect did not quite work out in the manner they thought they’d like to launch, and late 2012 has now become August 2013, however, they are good to go, and launch a daily flight as of end-August 2013 between these cities. They are going back to Australia after 16 years, and I hope they get enough traffic to justify this decision. As per AirlineRoutes.net, the flight is going to go 4 times a week in terms of Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne direction, and 3 times a week…
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Holiday Inn Manali for 5K IHG points
The current Priority Club IHG Rewards Club PointsBreak list is now out, and amongst the list is Holiday Inn Manali, which is going for 5000 Priority Club IHG Rewards Club points for redemption bookings made for stay upto 31 August 2013. This particular Holiday Inn is a resort property, and usually goes for 20,000 IHG Club Reward points/night, so compared to that, this redemption price is a steal. Now I know it is not the best weather to go to Manali, but in case you’re adventurous, this is for you! Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
Jet Airways and HDFC Bank launch a co-branded debit card
I almost thought I was nuts to have imagined that HDFC Bank and Jet Airways announced last year that they would introduce co-branded Debit Cards as a part of their alliance. There was no word from either party for a whole year after launching a credit card, and now it comes. On the 1st of July, HDFC Bank and Jet Airways finally launched a JetPrivilege HDFC Bank World Debit Card. Like I mentioned earlier, debit cards are a bigger market in India than credit cards, and a lot of people do not like to borrow to spend. And HDFC Bank would be the first debit card in the Indian market to offer a debit card which earns miles on swiping…
Ever been locked out right after your spa treatment?
Like I mentioned yesterday, I had a rigorous ten days of work travel and I just got back into Mumbai on Saturday. On Sunday, I was booked to drive away a few hours from Mumbai and stay at a property which is a 6 month old addition to a leading brand of hotels across the world. This one is a Retreat and a Spa, and one of their largest properties I’d like to believe. Except, as a leisure property, it has amazed and disappointed me so far. I’m not going to name this one just yet, but a little bit of Google skills should help you find out if you’d be very curious. Google for “320 acres retreat spa” and…
And we’re back!
I know I’ve conveniently been on mute mode for the past one week or so. Like I’d last posted, the BoardingArea servers were undergoing upgrade for a couple of days. However, this was also the time when I had to quickly pack my bags and be away on a work schedule in Dubai and Hong Kong. And you know what, the whole airfare pricing paradigm, which charges you way more for one-way tickets internationally made sure I had to fly back to Mumbai via Dubai as well. I was not flexible in my timings in Dubai, otherwise I’d have loved to have transited at Mumbai/Delhi and would have done BOM-DXB-BOM/DEL-HKG-BOM. Anyhow, after slogging in the back of the bus mostly,…
Gone fishing!
Not! BoardingArea, my blog network and host, is going t be down for scheduled maintenance today (10 PM Mountain Time on Thursday, 20 June 2013) and come back up within the next 36 hours or so. We’re doing some exciting changes at the back-end, and due to this, I won’t be able to post anything for you for this timeframe, or you to be able to comment on the blog. If there is something you want to know, you could tweet me at @livefromalounge, or mail me at aj@livefromalounge.com. In the meanwhile, I am very excited to meet some of you in July, so if you’re in Mumbai or will be in Mumbai, do sign-up for the meetup here. I’ll…
Lets meet in Mumbai on July 13!
I’ve been wanting to meet my readers and fellow travel and miles & points junkies for a long while now. Except I’ve not been able to do much about it. I thought it would be a good idea to start with setting a date, which gives you all enough time to plan it into your agenda, and then we can take it from there. So here is the plan, if you are a regular or not, I’m inviting you to catch up on the second Saturday of July 2013, in Bandra, Mumbai. I’ve really not set an agenda for this meetup, but I hope to meet and talk to all of you about travel, miles and points, and learn from…
Oberoi Dubai opens, offers special inaugural rates
Oberoi Hotels, the owner and operator of some fantastic luxury properties such as the Oberoi Amarvilas, Oberoi the Rajvilas and the Oberoi Udayvilas, inaugurated their Dubai hotel on June 15. From the pictures, it looks like a very luxurious property, something which can perhaps hold its own amongst the various other luxury hotels in the city. Have a look: The Oberoi, Dubai The rooms View from the hotel All the pictures are courtesy the hotel image gallery, here. The reason to write this post, however, is to inform you all about the special inaugural rates being offered at the hotel. The Oberoi, Dubai is currently offering a special price of AED 1,000 valid for stays till 31st August 2013. Inclusions…
Your Jet Privilege conversion promo questions answered
Last week, I posted about Jet Airways offering a 20% bonus on converting your credit card points to Jet Privilege miles. I got a few queries about the transfer process and/or output, and I thought I’d answer them here in public interest: I got a question on Twitter, asking me if the 20% JP Miles bonus could be stacked with the 10% discount on web redemptions at Amex Membership Rewards. The answer to that, is No. The Amex Membership Rewards web redemption discount is not applicable on all categories, and Airline miles is one of them. So, you’d just transfer the applicable points currency from your credit card account and Jet Airways would credit the appropriate number of miles to…
SPG Gold for 1 night stay for MasterCard members in Asia Pacific
Starwood Preferred Guest, the loyalty program of Starwood hotels, has offered via a tie-up with MasterCard for Asia Pacific card members, SPG Gold status for one year just on completing one stay in the past. This promotion has just returned for the period till 12 July 2015. Here is how it works: For those of you who have an SPG account, or sign up with a new account, with an address on file in the Asia Pacific region (ex-Japan), you can benefit from this promotion if you have a World MasterCard or a WorldElite MasterCard issued in the Asia Pacific. You basically need to make one qualifying stay (revenue stay) at a participating SPG hotel, the list is here, and…
Jet Airways offering 3x miles to returning JP members
Jet Airways has sent out emails to select members offering them 3x miles on their flight between June 18, 2013 to September 17, 2013. It is a sort of a welcome back offer, and offered only to members who have been sent out the emailers. The Triple miles offer is on the base miles flown, and excludes any tier bonuses or class of service bonuses that you may be eligible for. What I don’t need to tell you is that this is valid for Jet Airways and JetKonnect flights only, and you need to have your JP number put on while check-in. However, what I do need to say is that interestingly, this is valid for the first flight ‘credited’…
