Starwood is offering upto $50 credit for booking a stay in the Indian properties, along with the Maldives and Bangladesh ones. You need to reserve using the code CREBAR to be able to enjoy the promotion. Reservations using this booking code can be made till August 10, 2014 while the stays have to be completed by December 31, 2014. The room credit will be not applicable for adjusting against the room rate, but against services at the hotel, such as dining and spa. I checked up the rates, and the promotion is valid on flexible rates. For instance, the ITC Rajputana is offering rates of INR 8500 per night, and offering USD 25 credit, which could be good for a…
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SpiceJet launching SpiceMax on August 15, 2014
SpiceJet Max was the earlier name of SpiceJet’s bundled services, where they offered any seat access as a part of the product proposition. This helped getting the premium seats (the front and emergency exits) before anyone else by paying for it. Here is a blurb for the earlier version of SpiceJet Max. Now, the airline is reinventing itself over the past months, and like I wrote here in May, SpiceJet has been reconfiguring all their Boeing 737s to offer a genuine enhanced legspace product for which the airline could charge the premium (INR 500-600 while booking). The product has already been available on some planes, as they came back from reconfiguration, but from August 15, 2014 the product will be…
Jet Airways enhances domestic redemptions, guts international premium redemptions across network w.e.f. September 1, 2014
Earlier Posts: Jet Airways inadvertently exposes new redemption structure Jet Airways retracts new redemption structure Jet Privilege announces new earning structure w.e.f. August 1, 2014 Whenever an airline makes it very easy to earn miles, they also come to a point where they devalue them, and call them adjustments. However, in the case of Jet Airways, they released the new redemption rules by mistake last week, and my determination was that the airline is slashing miles required on many a domestic routes but redemptions on international routes are going to be hit very hard. Today, they officially released the new redemption chart, and have given us a month to utilise the old redemption chart before they go through with the…
Jet Airways launches co-branded credit cards with IndusInd Bank
Jet Airways has existing co-branded credit cards with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, American Express and a co-branded debit card with HDFC Bank. And now, they have launched the fifth product in the market, which is in collaboration with IndusInd Bank, called the Jet Airways IndusInd Odyssey Credit Card. There is also a lower product called the Jet Airways IndusInd Voyage Credit Card. The product is similar to ICICI Bank’s card in the sense that IndusInd is offering a Visa Signature version as well as an American Express version, and you can choose to have either or both for the same amount of annual fees. Lets go over the benefits then for these products: Sign-up bonus: For the Odyssey cards, you…
Hotel Review: Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport
I recently found myself on an extra night layover in the Netherlands, and while I usually stay put at the Manhattan Hotel, Rotterdam, in this case, I decided to head to a hotel closer to the airport, since I had a very early morning flight to catch and I wasn’t sure if the railway service would be up and running at that hour. The choice boiled down to Hyatt Place since the Sheraton across the airport was quoting at 269 Euros that night, and that is expensive just to sleep a few hours. To get to Schipol Airport from Rotterdam Central, I used the train since the distances are large enough for a Euro 100 cab ride at least, and…
Citibank Premiermiles: New Signups get extra 10K miles for INR 50K spend in 60 days
The days of American style sign up bonuses are finally coming into India. There is a new promotion that has been sent out to members of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program this morning, which gives you an extra 10,000 PremierMiles for spending at least INR 50,000 on the new card within 60 days of activation. While I have a review of the Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card I did in 2012, here is a quick summary of the features: All spend earn 4 PremierMiles per INR 100 spend Airline purchases and accelerated partner spends earn 10 PremierMiles per INR 100 spend. GoIbibo, Yatra, Raymonds, Bookmyshow are some of the accelerated spend partners. All PremierMiles convert to Airline miles in a 1:1 ratio…
Citibank PremierMiles v/s Citibank Prestige
V/S One of my posts about the conversion from Citibank PremierMiles to Citibank Prestige quite set the cat amongst the pigeons out there. While everyone does want to double their miles with the arbitrage, I was inundated with email over the weekend about the differences and the similarities. I just thought I’d put my perspective out here: Citibank PremierMiles in my opinion, is the card targeted towards the travellers. You earn PremierMiles towards various purchases, and earn very high number of PremierMiles for airline purchases. You also get higher number of PremierMiles if you buy from certain brands or websites. Alongside, there are acceleration offers where Citi offers additional miles for certain category spends from time to time. You can…
Resisting the urge for Hyatt Diamond Trial
I’m torn here and this is not a good feeling. Sometimes I feel the golden criteria for being a blogger based on BoardingArea should be that you have Hyatt’s Diamond status. And I haven’t had that for most of the 3 years I’ve been around. See, here are the key benefits of being a Hyatt Diamond: 30% point bonus when choosing points Best room available upon arrival, excluding suites Access to the Regency Club or Grand Club lounge featuring complimentary continental breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres. Daily complimentary full breakfast in hotels without a club lounge. 4 Suite Upgrades annually on eligible paid nights (valid for 7 nights each) A welcome point bonus or food and beverage amenity during each…
Hotel Review: Four Points by Sheraton, Jaipur
Flight Review: Indigo, BOM – JAI, 6E 207, Economy My trip was going to be just an overnight one, because I had other commitments back in Mumbai on Sunday. Hotels in Jaipur, even the chain ones, are pretty cheap I’d say, and at the time of making this reservation, Four Points was working out to a very cheap deal of about INR 3000 inclusive of breakfast. While it is not all the way in the centre of the city, one could easily get conveyance from here to the old Jaipur areas. We arrived into Jaipur pretty early, and had requested early check-in ahead of arrival. The hotel was not very full, so I did get a confirmation that early check-in…
Airfare sales: Indian airlines going for each others jugulars?
Considering this is my personal blog, this could be my op-ed piece this weekend. I’ve been noticing two trends this year. Firstly, a certain red airline has been putting out a lot of fare sales across the board this year. I have lost count and I haven’t even put out all the sales on the blog but only a few of them. Have a look: Jet Airways, Indigo and SpiceJet offering Indian fare sales till August 4, 2014 Spicejet & Indigo offering sale fares for travel between August to October 2014 SpiceJet INR 999 sale for 2015 dates SpiceJet and Indigo 40% off sale fares till June 19 Selective Fare Sales on Jet Airways and SpiceJet today SpiceJet selling tickets…
Jet Airways, Indigo and SpiceJet offering Indian fare sales till August 4, 2014
A fare sale a week keeps the customers happy and flying, while the airlines, they keep ‘em drying out of cash. Yet, this is the reality of the Indian market and somehow we are back to the days 2-3 years back when airlines would drop their prices frequently to get each others’ customers to fly on their airlines. How they call it, is stoking demand, but I guess mostly it is the same people who’d have flown anyways moving their business elsewhere. SpiceJet, as usual, brought out another bout of fare sale this week. These sales have given them marketshare. They are selling discounted tickets till the end of August 3, 2014 (India Standard Time), for travel between September 1,…
