Oy! I am extremely apologetic I forgot my own blog’s birthday from last week! We turned 3 last Monday, and I just wanted to thank all of you for your hard work in earning your miles and travel feathers in India, and making us a part of your journey along. The journey, is the reward! Like I’ve said before, I started this blog to put out my travel experiences with miles and points, with a focus on the Indian miles and points space. And I think the timing was about right. When I popped up on the blogosphere in 2011, there were a lot of travel blogs about India, but nothing that focussed on travel loyalty, aspirational travel and how…
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Lounge Review: Plaza Premium Lounge (Domestic), Bangalore Airport
There have been two major issues I’ve had with the Bangalore BIAL Airport for as long as I remember. Having used the airport based inside the city, I find the current airport too far away, and one can’t predict travel times to the airport since you can only go by the road. The other one was, the lack of a lounge for most airlines, except for Kingfisher Airlines. Then, they rebranded the Kingfisher Airlines lounge as the Pause Lounge. However, it looks like the troubles for accessing lounges in Bangalore Airports may now be over. As of March this year, Plaza Premium opened up a couple of lounges at Bangalore, one at the Domestic side of the terminal, and one…
Did you get yourself a Myles self-drive?
Last week, I’d put out a giveaway offering the winner a self-drive car for two days with India’s only self-drive car service, Myles. Myles is available across 16 destinations in India, and they offer a fair depth in the variety of cars, so I wanted to make sure one of you gets an option on your car type and where you’d go with the car. The entries came in over a week, and Anant came out to be the winner: My best road trip has been exploring Ladakh with Leh as the base. The vast expanses of cold uninhabited desert, and the occasional village and monastery as well as the winding mountain roads and gorgeous scenery made it a journey…
The Citibank Prestige Officially Launched!
I’ve been a big cheerleader of Citibank’s credit card products, and earlier this year I posted about the Citibank Prestige Credit Card being launched in India. The product indeed seeks to take the premium product space that was vacated by the Citibank Ultima, which sort of went downhill last year. Citibank, with this product, has been put in the same league as American Express Platinum, which wants to target the premium end of the market, what they lovingly call the affluent segment. Anyhow, when I reviewed the product, I decided to get me one as well. However, I finally went about the process a few days ago and I just received my welcome package late last week which included the…
Jet Airways clarifies stance on Ukrainian Airspace, does not fully come clean
A couple of days ago, Jet Airways put up a loosely worded media statement on their website, which stated that they have not been flying above Ukraine for a few months. Here is the statement: To this, I countered with data about the fact that Jet Airways has indeed been flying over Ukraine, in fact flying right on top of the conflict zone sometimes. Here is the post I wrote yesterday, and below is the snapshots of the July 17 flightpath of one of Jet Airways’ European flights. Now, Jet Airways seems to see reason in the fact that they were not entirely above board in their last explanation. So, they’ve put in a new one today, where they state…
Why are Airlines of India lying about flying over Ukraine?
I’m still a little bit shocked at the way things played out last week in the air, and realising I won’t have a different point of view to offer, I restrained myself from pouring out on the tragedy that happened over the Ukrainian airspace last week. However, one of the things on my mind has been the reactions that have been made by other airlines to assuage their customers about the situation. Many an airlines went about clarifying that they did not fly over the Ukrainian airspace for a while, but lets stick to the situation closer home. The Government of India issued a statement a couple of days ago about India’s airlines not flying around Ukraine. In the same…
Tata–Singapore Airlines JV gets set for launch
Last year, I wrote about Tata’s upcoming joint venture airlines with Singapore Airlines, which is the second JV Tata made in 2013 to get back into Indian aviation. Along with Air Asia, they’ve already launched a low-fare carrier called Air Asia India last month, and now the focus is on getting this one off the ground in another couple of months. While Air Asia India is a no-frills carrier, the new Tata/Singapore Airlines carrier will be a full-service carrier which will compete with Air India and Jet Airways on metro routes to start with. They’re in the process of getting their Air Operators Permit in India right now, and their first Airbus A320 (to bear registration VT-TTB) took to the…
Air India offering double miles on the Delhi–Moscow flight
I recently wrote about the launch of Air India’s flight between Delhi and Moscow, which started operations from yesterday, on their Boeing 787 planes. Now, Air India is offering a double miles promotion on their frequent flyer program Flying Returns for those who choose to fly between India and Russia, for flying with them between July 18, 2014 to September 30, 2014. If you will be connecting from anywhere in India, you won’t get double miles for your intra-India flight, but on your India-Russia or vice versa route you should clock double miles. AI has not updated the mileage calculator on their website yet, but Delhi-Moscow should earn 2679 miles one way (base). Remember, Air India does not guarantee 100%…
I just cancelled my Amex Platinum!
Yeah! And it feels liberating! American Express charges INR 50,000 per annum + taxes to provide you their Platinum Charge Card. They promise the world with it, including a luxurious do anything concierge service and access to the Platinum Travel Desk. However, unlike their home market, the USA, the fees is more than double that market, and the privileges are 1/2 or so of that market. There are no mileage or Membership Rewards points to get you started as well, unlike the 100K MR offer in the USA last year. With this insight, this card was never a competitor in my pocket since it was not worthy of the fee in my opinion. Now, earlier this year, American Express India…
Reminder: 5 days left for 50% off Jet Privilege redemptions
Early last week, Jet Airways had announced a sort of a sale, where you get domestic (India) award ticket redemptions at 50% off the usually required number of miles, if you redeem your miles via the website. This sale is valid for bookings made till September 30, 2014 and you need to book tickets by July 21, 2014. You can book business class as well as economy seats for redemptions. This is just a quick reminder, that if you are interested in booking up your redemption tickets, it may be a good idea to plan it out now and book over the weekend. You can find all the details in my original post here. After all, a mile saved is…
Have you tried winning your self-drive car for 2 days yet?
Earlier this week, I announced a giveaway where you could get yourself a chance to win a 2-day drive with Myles, India’s only self-drive service with availability across the country. To be able to participate, all you have to do is the following: All you got to do is to put in the comments section below, a few lines about your best roadtrip experience, or the one you want to have. Also tell me which Myles location would you pick up your car at? You can make an entry or multiple entries till Saturday, July 20, 2014. Do remember to follow @livefromalounge and @myles_IN on Twitter as well to make it count. Remember, your comments need to come in on…
