One World elect member Kingfisher Airlines is offering a 20 percent bonus on the transfer of various credit card and hotel reward points to its King Club loyalty program through 30th November 2011. The bonus is valid on a wide variety of participating credit cards, largely Indian, such as the HDFC Bank Credit Cards, ICICI Bank Credit Cards, Citibank, Axis Bank Credit Cards. Here is the promo details and the list of participating partners. If you accumulate American Express Membership Reward points, even these post with a 20% bonus. Indian members of the American Express MR program get a conversion ratio of 1.25 MR points for 1 King Club Mile on all Indian Rupee card spends. Using this offer, you…
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Priority Club fall promo is live now!
Just a reminder for all of you, that the Priority Club fall promo, which I blogged about a while ago, is now live since September 15. The promo, valid till December 31, 2011 allows you to to earn upto 80K Priority Club points for your upcoming stays at the IHG properties. IHG is trying to get you to experience more of their brands rather than tuck in at your favourite Intercontinental or Holiday Inn, and hence you get a higher multiplier every time you stay at a new brand (uptil the 4th one). Check out my analysis of the fall offer here.
Dear KLM, why try to rip me off and then make me use the throwaway pricing trick?
Last week, I was in Zurich for a quick work trip, and while I was arriving from Brussels, I was going to depart onwards to Amsterdam Schipol for the next leg of my trip. While I could get BRU-ZRH as another leg on my BOM-BRU-BOM ticket (since Jet Airways had a interline partnership with Swiss), I found some pretty exhorbitant fares on the orphan leg of ZRH-AMS. To give you a bit of background, I had some constraints, this being a business trip. I was working the whole day in Zurich, and I did not want to arrive in AMS very late in the evening considering my eventual destination was Rotterdam which is a while away in terms of travel…
A job well done!
In spite of being a Jet Airways flier most of the times, I have been having an issue with their recent service quality. Maybe it us the tight economic scenario that made them do some tweaks, but it is one good international product out there. Maybe I haven’ t scaled down my expectations in line! However, when I flew with them this past Saturday, on a flight back from Brussels to Mumbai, it was a reminder of the good old times, when everything was as it used to be. The champagne was flowing, the food was warm, the service with a smile and the details all taken care of. Happy with the whole experience, I asked for a feedback form…
Flying is healing!
I just did a gruesome 12 hours of flying wherby I realised flying could actually be healing, medically too! Whoa. So I had to get into Zurich before Monday on a work schedule, and I took the trip into Brussels from Mumbai via Jet Airways, and connected with a Swiss flight 2 hours later. Along the way, I had to clear a serpentine long queue for passport control and transit security. Top it up with the fact that my upgrade did not clear, and I had to rough it out in economy for the 9 hours I was on BOM-BRU. But I am surprised at the way I react to flying (in a positive way of course!). Like I reported…
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect
Upcoming Alert: 9,200 miles over to Europe and back, and a Sunday in Switzerland thrown in! While I have been writing in my head for most of the past week, and on the way back home from work, but for the past few days I have had no hours to put all these thoughts on paper. Why? A trip with two month’s notice going down the wire to a last-minute clincher and the work associated with it. 14-hour workdays at the office and hardly any sleep. My travels and work are deeply interrelated. I work to travel to work to travel to work … you get the gist. And when you are the face of an organisation (or so I…
Trip Report: A short vacation in Sri Lanka
Introduction Check-in: Chatrapati Sivaji International Airport, Terminal 1 (Mumbai), Carnations Lounge Domestic Airborne: Flight 9W 469 (BOM – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Clipper Lounge International Airborne: Flight 9W 254 (MAA – CMB), Jet Airways, Economy Taj Samudra, Colombo Exploring Colombo Exploring South-west Sri Lanka Check-in: Bandaranaike International Airport (Colombo) Airborne: Flight 9W 253 (CMB – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Jet Airways Premiere Lounge Airborne: Flight 9W 489 (MAA – BOM), Jet Airways, Economy Conclusion In Feb I decided to take a quick couple of days off from work and hop over to Colombo for a four day vacation. This was going to be rest and recuperation for me, and labelled as a ‘do-nothing’…
10,000 MR points/King Miles for referring Amex applications in India
I received an email from American Express while I was travelling a couple of weeks back. This was a promo which they had designed for existing card holders to refer their friends and contacts to American Express for the American Express Kingfisher First Credit Card and the American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card. So, the offer, which seems to be a targetted one, is from a unique tie-up between Amex and LinkedIn in India. I haven’t been at the receiving end of such a marketing offer earlier, and I hold credit cards from most prominent CC issuers in India. The details of the offer are as follows: The applicant of the…
BA switches from BA Miles to Avios Points as its loyalty currency from November 2011
The merger of British Airways and Iberia, which was agreed upon in April 2010, was obviously going to lead to synergies amongst the two carriers, but the mileage programs did not see it yet. And now, BA and Iberia have something to show on this aspect. Since both the carriers are going to operate under their own brands, so the Executive Club, BA’s loyalty program retains its name. But BA is promising to change the way you can earn and spend on BA. And it looks like it is taking feedback on the way. Here is a part of an email I just received from the Executive Club, We know how important the Executive Club is to our customers, and…
Birdwatch: Photo # 2 (Air Macau)
While all of you are trying to help me figure out which trip report comes up next for all of you, here is a picture of one of the most interesting liveries I’ve ever seen. This is at the Beijing Capital Airport, a yellow colored Air Macau aircraft, leased back to parent Air China sitting on the tarmac ready to go (somewhere). It turned out this very interesting plane was my flight to HKG. 😛 Airline: Air Macau (leased to Air China) Location: Beijing Capital Airport Airframe: Airbus 321 If you want to share a picture of a plane, an airport, or anything aviation related, please send it across to aj@livefromalounge.com with the details and I’ll put it up here.…
Help me decide which trip report to bring up next…
From my repertoire of trips made in the recent past, there are four of these which I’d really love to write down for all of you to read. Trouble is, I can’t seem to make up my mind on where to start! And this is where I need you all to help me prioritise all of these, or just tell me which ones you’d like to read first! Here goes…. 1) Colombo on Jet Airways and Taj Hotels Colombo 2) The USA via Brussels on Jet Airways, Delta Airlines and at the Hilton Hotels in Washington DC 3) South East Asia on Jet Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air China, Cathay Pacific and Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, W Hotel, Crowne Plaza 4) Western…
