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Flight Review: Indigo, Economy. Mumbai – Jaipur,

by Ajay 10 Comments

Indigo economy review

Everyone who reads this blog knows I am a Jet Airways loyalist on the domestic sectors, and I do fly Air India from time to time as well. I just see more value out of flying a full-service carrier, as long as reliability is not in question. For a flyer with erratic schedules like me, it is important to be able to use the lounge to get some work done pre-flight if possible, and sometimes the only meals I eat are on the plane, so yes, they are important. I recently decided to get back on Indigo after a very long time, maybe about 3 years or so. I just wanted to see what’s new and what is consistent in…

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It seems AwardWallet is popular, some upgrade codes then!

by Ajay 17 Comments

Yesterday, I put out a birthday note for all of you. There is a return present as well for one of you in there. I asked you all: Leave me a comment on this post about what has been your favourite post(s) from my postings over the past three years, and why? Now, going through the comments on that post, apart from the fact that everyone has gotten obsessed with Citibank PremierMiles due to my fandom of them, the other most popular item out there is AwardWallet. I’ve done AwardWallet upgrade giveaways in the past, but seems it goes out like hotcakes. For those of you who don’t know, AW is a website that allows me to track my points…

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Happy birthday to us! Let us reward you!

by Ajay 35 Comments

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

by Ajay 15 Comments

a purple sign with white text

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…

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Did you get yourself a Myles self-drive?

by Ajay 1 Comment

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…

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The Citibank Prestige Officially Launched!

by Ajay 10 Comments

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…

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Jet Airways clarifies stance on Ukrainian Airspace, does not fully come clean

by Ajay 2 Comments

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…

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Why are Airlines of India lying about flying over Ukraine?

by Ajay 7 Comments

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…

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Tata–Singapore Airlines JV gets set for launch

by Ajay Leave A Comment

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…

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Air India offering double miles on the Delhi–Moscow flight

by Ajay Leave A Comment

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%…

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I just cancelled my Amex Platinum!

by Ajay 25 Comments

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…

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