Conde Nast Traveller’s India team set out to give away their Readers Travel Awards 2011 at a grand function in New Delhi last evening, and there were some surprises and then some non-surprises which happened out there.Yours truly, being an avid supporter of all things travel in India, did put in his vote too for the RTA 2011. Here are some key highlights from the Award Results that came out last night: – Airlines for Best Business Travel outside India: Singapore Airlines and Emirates – Airlines for Best Leisure Travel outside India: Emirates and Singapore Airlines Now this is not surprising at all, given that Emirates and Singapore Airlines both take traffic from India very seriously and use the hub-and-spoke…
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And we have a winner…
A few days back I announced a small swag giveaway on the blog, and asked you all to head to Facebook to drop your suggestions there about what you wanted to see more on this blog. And here we go with the winner of the BoardingArea t-shirt who dropped a suggestion on the Facebook wall. Thank you Indranil for your suggestion, and I will be in touch with you shortly to deliver your swag. Also, I’ll be covering redeeming award flights with Jet Airways and my own experiences very soon. So look out! I also promised a couple of pens to a couple of ‘Likers’ on FB. For this, I used random.org to figure out who came up with the…
Save 25-33% on Hilton stays till 8 January 2012!
Hilton has recently launched a ‘Winter Holidays Sale’ on its website, where it is offering 25-33% on hotel stays at Hilton properties and other Hilton brands across the globe. The sale went up 25 Nov 2011 onwards and lasts till 1st Jan 2012. The stay has to be completed between 8th Dec 2011 and 8th Jan 2012. The offer is available on pre-paid rates, which need to be booked at least 7 days prior to the stay date, and turn out to be cheaper than the advertised Advance Purchase Rates also. Hilton’s website states that the sale will be broadly 25% off for American properties and 33% on European and Asian properties. Plus, for each stay of at least two nights, Hilton HHonors…
Pay for Jet Airways tickets with your Amex and get 5000 JP miles!
Jet Airways recently hopped on to the American Express bandwagon. This meant you could now transfer your MR points to Jet Airways in India. Although, like always with any card tieup in India, Jet Airways JP miles are priced higher than the other conversions like Kingfisher or Air India Flying Returns. However, to celebrate their alliance, Jet and AX have come together to make a new online offer for booking ‘revenue’ tickets on Jet Airways. From now until October 31, 2012, if you booked tickets on JetAirways.com using your American Express card, you could potentially earn 5,000 JP Miles in your Jet Privilege account. All you got to do is to book tickets worth INR 100,000 (USD 2,000) on your AX,…
Bye Bye Citibank Jet Airways Platinum Credit Card!
I just got off the phone with Citibank. This was one long tiresome negotiation we put each other through. And my misery is finally over. A few months ago Citibank and Jet Airways started taking away the benefits on the Citibank-Jet Airways Credit Card offered in India. I wrote about them and also contacted the Airline and the Bank to have a hard look at the whole setup and see what the competition was doing. As expected, I drew a blank there.I used to love this card since it contributed quite a bit to giving me my free round trip to the USA in Jet Airways Premiere Class this year, but the new terms did not look attractive anymore. It…
What makes the Taj Mahal hotels so special!?
I must admit I have never stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai, but every time I’ve walked in for a client meeting, or a lunch, or an event being hosted, or just a casual drink after work, I’ve felt the warmth more than any other hotel I’ve stayed in around my travels so far. At the Taj Mahal Palace, which was under siege for about 3 days from 26th November 2008 to 28th November 2008, it was a different picture than it exists today. Having been very close to one of the venues of this unfortunate event, I only feel lucky to have not been sucked into the tragedy by a whisker. Rated as one of the best hotels of…
Breaking: Earn 9000 Carlson GoldPoints on an Award Stay!
This seems to be the year Club Carlson is writing blank cheques to everyone who cares to stay at one of their hotels. They recently launched the 50,000 points giveaway where anyone who stayed at a Radisson property before 30th December 2011 could register for the Giveaway and take home 50K points. MommyPoints and Ric at the Loyalty Traveler wrote about this. Now, to motivate members to encash on some of those points, or other Club Carlson GoldPoints they might have earned before, Carlson is coming up with a new promotion from 1st December 2011. For an award stay at any ClubCarlson property globally (including Radisson, Radisson Blu, Park Inn, Park Plaza and the other brands) between December 1, 2011…
Have you participated in the Hyatt Million Points Sweepstakes yet?
Just a friendly reminder from your friend at Live From A Lounge, that Hyatt is giving away 100,000 Gold Passport points to 10 participants on Facebook, all for heading up to Facebook and putting up your name, email address and your GP number (if you have one!). What is more, per eligible ’email address’, you can participate 9 times via the 9 different pages below: Hyatt (www.facebook.com/Hyatt) Hyatt Hotels (www.facebook.com/hyatthotels) Park Hyatt (www.facebook.com/ParkHyatt) Andaz (www.facebook.com/andaz) Grand Hyatt (www.facebook.com/grandhyatt) Hyatt Regency (www.facebook.com/HyattRegency) Hyatt Place (www.facebook.com/HyattPlace) Hyatt Summerfield Suites (www.facebook.com/HyattSummerfieldSuites) Hyatt Vacation Club (www.facebook.com/hyattvacationclub) The sweepstakes are open till 9th December 2011, and if you had 10 email ID’s (gmail, hotmail, office, etc.) you could participate in the contest 10 times over!…
Indian Carriers now bring the widebodies to the Middle East, finally!
This has been an anomaly finally getting sorted out. While I agree and it makes sense that ports such as Dubai, Riyadh and other Middle-east posts are within the flight range of a narrowbody like a 73x or a 32x series plane, but the Mid-East carriers such as Emirates have been dumping capacity (to fly forward pax to North America etc). For the longest time they flew the B777s to India, and my expectations were set high when I first booked a BOM-DXB-BOM in 2009, without bothering to check if it was a narrowbody plane or a widebody. I was thoroughly pissed with myself for not checking up the plane when I walked into the plane to realise it was…
Enhancements to ‘Live From A Lounge’ and the Swag giveaway ….
Its been 5 eventful months being a part of the BoardingArea community. The Journey is the Reward, and I am trying to make sure that I give you enough of my personal journey stories which should help you with your travels and enough of the Rewards which you can earn yourself on the travels. To engage with you more and often, I’ve been on Twitter from the word go and you can find me at @Livefromalounge. There have been enhancements to the site going on an ongoing basis, and I thought it would be an idea to share with all of you the interesting things happening around here. I can promise you this is not like an enhancement to a…
Singapore Airlines launches deals from India to USA on the A380
Singapore Airlines is launching the A380 service to the USA via Frankfurt from 15 January 2011. On this occassion, they are offering a special fare of INR 60,000 for a return trip from Mumbai to any of the four US locations served by SIA, namely, New York, Houston, Los Angeles and San Fransisco. This deal is valid for the Economy segment, and from any of the 10 airports served in India by Singapore Airlines / Silk Air. The deal is sweet in case you are willing for a longer routing from India and want to try out the SQ A380, which I bet would be very good service. I’ve never flown SQ to the USA, but I am thinking if…
