I’ve been looking forward to meet all of you for a while now. This is the reason I am working on organising the first meetup with those of you interested this weekend in Mumbai. You could look up this post for the details. A couple of weeks back when I announced this, I had just got the date in mind, and now we have venue details available as well. The plan is to meet in the afternoon at about 3 PM, in Bandra West, at Gostana. If you’re interested in the food, well, they flip yummy burgers and make lovely salads and all this with a dash of healthy quotient to it. Its a buy your own event, and I…
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Deal Alert: LA –Mumbai flights on Turkish for $785
Via Airfarewatchdog, there is a fare out there on Turkish Airlines for travel between Los Angeles and Mumbai (round trip), which is pricing out only at $785 for Economy travel. There are quite some dates available in February 2014. Just turn up on www.turkishairlines.com and look out for the fare with various dates within the specified dates above. While there are $785 fares, there are also other fares for a little upwards of $800 in case the lowest fare does not work for you. I’ve usually flown this route at an average price of $1300 on other airlines in the past, so it looks like a great deal coming if you’d like to fly over to India. And while you…
Air India to connect Amritsar to Birmingham via Delhi on the B787
Its been in the GDS systems for a few days already, however Air India finally came around to announcing their Amritsar (ATQ) – Delhi (DEL) – Birmingham (BHX) flight on their new Boeing 787 planes from 1st August 2013. The new route will be operated 4 times a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and is aiming to connect the burgeoning Indian community in Birmingham and Amritsar. Passengers from and to Amritsar will not have to change planes at Delhi. This is the second new route for the B787 in August. The other one getting launched is the B787 flights to Australia. Here are the timings of the flight, as per AirlineRoute.net : AI113 DEL1330 – 1800BHX 788 x357…
GoIbibo offering free movie tickets on flight & hotel bookings
GoIbibo has recently launched a new promotion to give away a couple of movie tickets with each flight ticket or hotel reservation you book on their website. Valid till July 31, 2013, the promotion is valid if you use the promocode GOMOVIE while booking up, and you can receive upto two vouchers (of 2 tickets each), during the offer period (per email id). However, be aware that the movie tickets are booked manually by a company called cinerewardz.com where you need to give them various options to book tickets, and they will perhaps end up booking the cheapest one for you. Here are the complete terms & conditions. You get upto 10 November 2013 to redeem the voucher, so you…
Air Arabia fare sale to UAE open till July 5
Air Arabia, the low-cost carrier which operates out of Sharjah, UAE has announced a special faresale for 72-hours between July 3 to July 5, between Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to Sharjah and onwards to select GCC and Middle-Eastern routes. Fares look attractive, and include a free baggage allowance of 20kgs as well. Tickets booked under this promotion are valid for travel till August 5, 2013. Here are some of the sample fares indicated on the website, one way. Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
Go Air moves to Terminal 1A in Mumbai
Terminal 1A at Mumbai has been the centre of questions ever since they had to throw out Kingfisher Airlines because of the non-payment of dues. When they eventually made the bold move, there was an abnormality, where Terminal 1B was handling 4 airlines (Indigo, Jet/JetKonnect, SpiceJet and GoAir), while Terminal 1A just had Air India. Here is how terminal 1A looked like: However, GoAir has moved its operations from Terminal 1B to Terminal 1A with effect from July 1, 2013. The airline currently operates 360 movements per week from the city. An aisle of check-in counters at Terminal 1A is now be available for GoAir passengers. The airline has also move its ticketing office to the new premise. It seems…
Air India to launch Delhi–Sydney/Melbourne triangular flights on their B787s
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…
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,…
