The recent changes announced by Club Carlson, followed by the annual readjustment by SPG, seemed to be beneficial for Indian audiences while some of the most luxurious properties around the world went up in award pricing. Club Carlson is readjusting 21 properties in India out of a total of 60 properties, and 20 are going south for awards. These changes go in effect for award reservations made after March 15, 2014. SPG as well is bringing down the award prices on 21 of their properties in India, a lot of them being the Luxury Collection hotels, which are actually signature ITC Hotels. Too bad, ITC Maurya is not one of them!! These changes go into effect on March 4, 2014.…
Travelling through Terminal 2 Mumbai: first thoughts!
Clipper Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 2 Courtyard by Marriott Hotel, Kochi Airport Clipper Lounge Cochin Air India 682, Cochin – Mumbai, Economy I planned a last minute weekend getaway earlier this week, and I decided to head to Cochin for the weekend. However, I also wanted to check out the Terminal 2 in Mumbai, which went live about 10 days back. At the moment, the terminal only serves international flights, and my first international trip for the year is still a few days out. So, for a change, I decided to fly Air India and use one of their domestic flights that fly from the Terminal 2. I’d been walked through this airport a long while back, when it was still…
Uber launches in Mumbai & offers 2 free rides
Uber has been going around India and I have been keenly looking forward for their launch in Mumbai, the city I call home now. The good news is, they just went into Secret Uber phase today, which means they have launched a few cabs in Mumbai already. While I write this post from my first Uber Mumbai ride, which is an uneventful Toyota Innova, the fares seem very competitive at least at this stage (they may go up later). The base fare to start the trip is INR 100, and you pay INR 17 per kilometre and INR 2 per minute of the ride. This is cheaper than Ola Luxury for sure, which I previewed recently. At this moment, they…
Superb Malaysia Airlines fares from India
Malaysia Airlines, a recent oneworld member, frequently runs sales from various markets (nothing new!), but has recently launched a great sale from Indian stations across their Asia Pacific network, which have about 30% off the regular fares. This could be their own initiative or the launch of Malindo Air in India, but who cares, the fares are pretty good and cover a lot of destinations on business and economy. You can book some of these deals till end of February 2014 and some others till April 2014. A reader, Parag Mehta, alerted me about the fares, and here are some of the fares, for instance, Mumbai – Bali return trip at INR 23,000 and Mumbai – Kuala Lampur at INR…
Free Ticket codes very good reason why you should keep your Jet co-branded credit cards
One of the query I receive frequently from readers has been about the renewal for their Jet Airways co-branded credit cards issued by HDFC Bank, American Express and ICICI Bank. Most readers find it attractive to receive the card in the first year with 15,000 to 30,000 JP Miles as sign-up bonus, and want to cancel it after the first year because the second year renewal benefits are not as good, and they are paying the same amount of fees. While everyone who likes collecting miles across the globe loves to look at the US banks and the ability of US residents to churn credit cards every 3-6 months for big sign-up bonuses, it is a heartbreak indeed that the…
Townhall and AwardWallet+ Giveaway
I started this blog in 2011, not just as a way to share my travels with all of you, but also to share my tips and tricks to being a smart traveller (travel hacker sounds too geeky!). From there to now, we’ve come a long way, discussing airplanes, mileage programs, credit cards which offer miles, trip reports, fare sales and so on. Since I am based in India, I also try and keep the focus on India, because there is no one big source covering the Indian travellers’ perspective and we are 1/6th of the world population. I recently realised I’ve never asked you guys what would you want to read here, and here on I will try and make…
Club Carlson changes & devaluations coming into effect March 15, 2014
Club Carlson has been one of the more liberal programs out there in terms of loyalty for hotels, however, one key feature that they have not introduced yet is to count award nights towards status for the year. That just changed. In a new communication from Club Carlson, new benefits are coming out as of March 15, 2014. However, there is a devaluation in the mix as well. Here are the details: You can now use Gold Points® to book premium rooms, including suites and more Our hotel categories will be updated and will include a new tier for our most luxurious hotels You can now earn Gold Points on food and beverages purchased during Award Nights Bonus for booking…
Review: Vivanta by Taj – Holiday Village, Goa
A couple of months back, I found myself on the plane to have a working weekend in Goa, and the destination turned out to be the Vivanta by Taj Holiday Village, which is one of the three Taj Hotel properties in Goa, and perhaps one of the best ones out there. My flight into Goa was a little late, which meant I was going to be using the shuttle service from the hotel rather than car that we had on disposal. The hotel is a good one hour ride away from Goa’s airport, in the north end of Goa, so I was looking forward to getting moving quickly and join the rest of my colleagues who were already at the…
Complimentary Hilton Gold Status for Visa Infinite Card holders
Hilton has been frequently in an arrangement with Visa to offer complimentary Hilton Gold status to Visa’s premium credit card holders. They had a complimentary Hilton Gold status promotion last year as well, where people could register online and get instant Hilton Gold status. Visa & Hilton have brought back their joint promotion, however, this time the Hilton Gold promotion is valid only for Visa Infinite card holders, for cards issued in Asia Pacific (except Japan), Central Europe, Middle East and Africa. The promotion is valid till December 31, 2014 and one needs to call the Visa Concierge number to be able to upgrade their membership to the Gold Tier. I find the Gold Tier at Hilton one of the…
SPG Gold for 1 night stay: MasterCard offer in Asia Pacific
I had actually written about this promotion about a year back, and I thought I’d post a reminder now. Starwood has had a promotion going on with MasterCard for a while, and open till July 2015, where after registration, with just one stay paid with your World MasterCard, you get Gold Status on Starwood Preferred Guest. The usual stay for Gold is 25 paid nights, and the benefits that come along are 50% more Starpoints, a welcome gift, 4 pm late checkout amongst others. For those of you who have an SPG account, or sign up with a new account, with an address on file in the Asia Pacific region (ex-Japan), you can benefit from this promotion if you have…
British Airways’ new mushy video & up to 70% discount for 2
First and foremost, get that pack of tissues handy. British Airways released a new video commercial this morning, targeted at the Indian market called Go further to Get Closer. Have a look: British Airways has clearly stepped up their India efforts over the past year, having recognised India is the second biggest market for them outside the UK, the other big one being USA. Now, here comes along an interesting offer as well, where BA claims to give you up to 70% off on tickets for 2 to the UK. This isn’t an online offer, so I made a friend make a call BA, and for a random date in June 2014, the offer price was at about INR 45,000…
