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Review: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Business

June 13, 2013 by Ajay 1 Comment

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class Since it was only me and the television in the Altitude Lounge at Delhi, I got bored pretty quick and decided to hang out at the gate after my breakfast in the lounge. It was going to be a full flight it seemed from the numbers that were lining up at the gate. While I’ve done tonnes of early morning flights and I’ve begun to not like them much, I like the fact that planes are back at their base and hence there is less…

Taj hotels in Mumbai offer dining discounts to Inner Circle members

June 12, 2013 by Ajay Leave A Comment

The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai is offering two special discounts to Inner Circle Members for drinks and dining: At the Starboard, the bar at the Taj Mahal Palace overlooking the Gateway of India, Inner Circle members are being offered happy hours at 50% off, on presentation of their Taj InnerCircle membership cards between 5 PM to 8 PM, till September 30, 2013. If you’re like Sunday brunches, the hotel is offering 20% off on a Sunday brunch (you can get family & friends along!) between 12:30 PM to 3 PM, till August 18, 2013. Offer available to Gold and Silver card members for a table of up to 12 people. You need to present your membership card at the time…

Etihad offering a status match to Gold till June 18

June 11, 2013 by Ajay 5 Comments

Etihad had introduced an opportunity to status match to their Gold tier last year, which I availed of. And they return this year with another opportunity to Status Match Gold tier for Gold tier this year, valid for applications received till June 18, 2013. Existing members of other airlines’ loyalty programmes at a Gold level or higher are invited to join the Etihad Guest programme and have their status matched. The national carrier of the UAE, which is working on getting Jet Airways in its fold, is offering another incentive to successful status matches. For all flights flown in Diamond First Class, you get triple Etihad Guest Miles while it will be double Miles on flights in Pearl Business Class…

PremierMiles ties up with GoIbibo, adds more partners

June 11, 2013 by Ajay 2 Comments

I’ve not exactly been up to speed with updating the blog most of last week, since I’ve been all over the place trying to get a few things closed out. But we are back to bringing you the latest and greatest from the Indian points & miles space. Last week, the Citibank PremierMiles website underwent a refresh. Like I wrote earlier, this was going to be a likely switch to GoIbibo as their partner online travel agent to power the website. This is now done, and you can earn accelerated miles on Citibank’s PremierMiles website, or on GoIbibo.com or on Yatra.com using your Citibank PremierMiles credit card. With this, there are expectations that did not work out. If you were…

Philippines refuses Jet Airways, Myanmar says hello to India

June 10, 2013 by Ajay 3 Comments

Jet Airways, which has been wanting to launch a flight to Manila for the longest time, has recently been refused permission to fly to the airport by the Civil Aeronautics Board of Philippines, as a result of growing congestion at the airport. According to the Philippines CAB official, 9W had applied for landing slots between 07h00 and 19h00, the busiest time of the day for the airport and the possibility of using other airports in the country was ruled out as most were not night rated and are limited to day time operations. On the other hand, Myanmar has granted India fifth freedom rights, which means that Indian airlines will now be able to operate revenue flights between India and…

Jet Airways CEO quits, Etihad starts to flex muscle

June 9, 2013 by Ajay Leave A Comment

The Jet Airways alliance with Etihad is quietly taking shape, with Jet Airways & Etihad awaiting approval from the Indian Government to take the deal forward. Jet Airways has already restructured its equity capital to be ready for the Etihad investment for 24% equity stake. The cooperation between the two airlines is already beginning to take shape, however. Jet Airways has asked for newer codeshare arrangements, to market Etihad flights to European cities such as Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Milan, Geneva, Istanbul and Dublin. They have also sought permission to codeshare on flights to Nairobi, Johannesburg and cities in the USA. On the other hand, however, Etihad is gunning for top management changes to make sure Jet Airways is fit and…

Hilton plans to scrap room service

June 4, 2013 by Ajay 10 Comments

Room service has been synonymous with full service hotels for the longest time. However, it seems the paradigm will change soon, at least that is the Hilton’s plan for the summers. As per a Reuters report, Hilton CEO stated at a hospitality conference today, that the 2000-key full-service Hilton New York Midtown will scrap away room service this summer, and instead open an onsite eatery which will offer gourmet take-out. I expect this to be a pilot for such an effort, because Hilton is not planning to roll out the change at its other properties just yet. Other hotels, such as the Marriott chain also have no intentions of eliminating room service for the time being. I guess this move…

Something New: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3

May 31, 2013 by Ajay 5 Comments

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class After a leisurely few days in Delhi, it was time to go back to Mumbai. I’m usually trying to look away from early morning flights, because I do my fair share on work travel, but this time, I was a little bit greedy to spend some more time at home with the family, so I booked up an early morning flight back. I arrived at the airport in good time, and proceeded to the Air India counters to collect my boarding pass at Terminal 3.…

Reminder: PremierMiles website undergoing maintenance June 2-4

May 30, 2013 by Ajay Leave A Comment

A quick reminder for those of you who maybe did not read this post before. Citibank will be performing maintenance on the PremierMiles website from Sunday June 2, 2013 0000 IST to June 4, 2013 2359 IST. This means, for the 72 hours period you will not see the website live and won’t be able to make any travel bookings, redemptions or cancellations to your existing reservations. What is really happening at the backend, common sense says, is a switch of vendor who powered the ticketing (Cleartrip). There may be more changes but I don’t know about these yet. Anyhow, if you are a Citibank PremierMiles user, and you want to be making any travel reservations or changes to existing…

Review: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy

May 30, 2013 by Ajay Leave A Comment

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class After an enjoyable experience in the Altitude Lounge at Mumbai, it was time to board my first Air India domestic flight in months. I’d picked to fly an Airbus 321, because these are the newer planes for Air India on the domestic segments, and I guess they use these on the regional segments as well. I’d pre-blocked my seats for months, as the Air India web-booking system allows you to do so. I suspect this would change after the unbundling guidelines coming into effect, and…

Summer Flights Giveaway worth INR 4,500 for Citibank Premiermiles members

May 29, 2013 by Ajay 12 Comments

A generous reader, Priyansh Modi, contacted me this afternoon with two very valuable Citibank PremierMiles Complimentary Ticket codes. Another reader, Vinay Deshpande, contributed one. They are not planning to use them this summer, so I thought what better than help someone else travel for their summer vacation. So, this is a very quick giveaway, valid one night only, so that tomorrow evening, I can email the codes to the winner and he/she can book up the tickets by the day after. I will draw randomly using random.org from all the qualified entries to pick a winner. The Prize: (1) Win 2 PremierMiles base-fare discount vouchers worth INR 1,500 each, (2) Win 1 PremierMiles base-fare discount voucher worth INR 1,500. Details: If you are…