The last 10 days have been interesting in the points & miles & travel space. Here is a review of all that was covered at LiveFromALounge in the past 10 days. I hope you haven’t missed anything! Vistara: I travelled on the Inaugural Vistara flight UK890 on January 9, 2015. Here is my review of the Vistara Experience. Vistara dropped prices a couple of days before taking flight. I wonder why. Airline Alliances: Check out my piece for the Conde Nast Traveller India, where I discuss the options for Indian travellers while choosing their airline affinities. Miles & Points: Citibank PremierMiles is changing the transfer options from 1:1 for PM -> Airmile transfer, to 2PM:1AirMile with effect from February 1,…
Review: UK 890 Delhi–Mumbai, Vistara, Economy
Vistara, the new full-service Indian carrier that is a joint venture between Tata Group of India and Singapore Airlines, took to the skies yesterday. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, since Vistara has promised to keep differentiated service as a cornerstone of their strategy. Like I said when Vistara made an initial product reveal, Vistara is hoping to be the Louis Vuitton of Indian Aviation. At the event, I wondered if they really were doing justice to their product with the reveal, because everything they said looked like just words then. Curious to find out if Vistara was all that it promised to be, I had to be on one of their planes. The…
New Year Resolution: Choose the right airline alliance
India is just about getting started with the airline alliances. But in the last year itself, it saw two of them. Air India joined the Star Alliance and Jet Airways joined Etihad Airways Partners, by virtue of having an investment from them. Conde Nast Traveller commissioned me to write a comparison about the various airline alliances in existence, and how can an Indian traveller navigate through them. I did a brief snapshot, which was published in the magazine and has now been reproduced online as well. You can read it here. I hope this is of use to all of you. If you have questions, happy to answer here or on email. Join over 4000 people who check-in daily to…
What is forcing Vistara’s hand on fares
Vistara is the newest carrier that will take wings tomorrow, and as per the positioning they’ve wanted to make in the Indian aviation market, I’ve labelled them the Louis Vuitton of Indian aviation. When Vistara opened for ticketing on 19 December 2014, they were out to make a statement. The tickets were positioned on the expensive brackets, and I booked a ticket at INR 11,428 including taxes and fees to be on the first flight. While I don’t have screenshots, I can promise you the pricing was rich and most flights on the DEL-BOM leg were pricing at least at INR 7500 in economy, and so on. If I can make a bold statement, they were outpricing themselves from the…
Vistara Economy on the inaugural for INR 6500
Vistara is all set to take wings a couple of days down the line, with a special inaugural flight UK 890 in between Delhi and Mumbai on January 9, 2015. I’ve covered the first look of the product and the loyalty program Club Vistara in detail a few days ago. When the reservations for Vistara opened, the initial flights were going at a very expensive price. Economy tickets were selling at INR 11000 for DEL-BOM and so on. However, it turns out that now the tickets are selling at a much cheaper price. If you would like to have the Vistara experience, feel free to book yourself a ticket on the inaugural. Here are the prices: These are round…
Premiermiles Transfer: Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
PremierMiles Devaluation w.e.f. February 1, 2015 PremierMiles to Etihad Guest conversion PremierMiles to Air India Flying Returns conversion Singapore Airlines is one of the first transfer partners I want to cover for your PremierMiles conversion options from outside of India. I’ve converted PremierMiles to KrisFlyer miles a couple of times, once to get on one of the Ultra Long Haul LAX-SIN flights by Singapore Airlines in Business Class (on their all business class product), before they discontinued those. Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer is a great way to get award tickets on Singapore Airlines own metal, since availability is much more to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Members as compared to other Star Alliance member programs, who hardly get any availability for Singapore Airlines’…
Hyatt Gold Passport offering 2500 bonus points per stay in India
Hyatt is out there pushing their business in India. They have done a couple of 50% off sales last year, and another promotion is now active to promote the Gold Passport program across the country. For all stays that are materialised between December 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015, which have the offer code India at the time of booking, you get a 2500 point bonus from Hyatt Gold Passport. Here are the details of the promotion as per Hyatt. The offer code is valid for all the 21 Hyatt properties around India. Last month, when the promotion was announced, I was under the false impression that the application of this promocode would inflate the rates for the stay. However,…
Don’t act in a haste on converting your PremierMiles
I’ve been on top of this PremierMiles situation since the day Citibank announced the upcoming devaluation. I can only thank my stars and yours that the devaluation is coming with a notice, and not unlike the time when Jet Airways and Citibank broke up relations overnight. Citibank will put the new transfer rates into effect from February 1, 2015, where each airmile conversion will work from 1 PM = 1 airmile to 2 PM = 1 airmile. So far, no changes are envisaged to hotel conversions. This means, even when you effect a transfer on January 30, 2015 you will still get a 1:1 conversion when it lands up into your frequent flyer account. I’ve seen loads of emails and…
Club Carlson Promo: 15K bonus for 2-nights & 30K bonus for 3-nights (+10K targetted)
Club Carlson is known to have one of the richest promotions history out there. They’ve frequently come out with 50K bonuses for one night promotions, so their Q12015 promotion is no less spectacular. This one is called “Extend Your Stay”, and is valid for stays between 12 January 2015 to 29 March 2015. Club Carlson is offering a 15,000 Club Carlson points bonus in case you have a 2 night stay on eligible rates with one of their many hotels around the world. In case you have a 3 night stay, you get 30,000 Club Carlson points as bonus. You need to register here. How much is that worth? Club Carlson redemption stays start at 9,000 points per night for…
PremierMiles Transfer: Air India Flying Returns
PremierMiles Devaluation w.e.f. February 1, 2015 PremierMiles to Etihad Guest conversion Since the devaluation of PremierMiles was announced last week, I am trying to post on all the options available for all of us to transfer into various frequent flyer programs, our hard earned PremierMiles. Yesterday, I wrote a post on Etihad Guest, and today, it is time for Air India’s Flying Returns program. I’ve covered bits and pieces of the Air India Flying Returns program over the times. Air India joined Star Alliance last year, so your miles on AI can now be used for redemptions on Star Alliance member carriers as well. On a whole, I find Air India’s program to be an expensive program, in comparison to…
PremierMiles Transfer: Etihad Guest
The year started on a not so great note, with Citibank announcing the devaluation of the PremierMiles transfer options. Over the next few days I am hoping to write posts evaluating in brief the options for transferring your PremierMiles, in case you are not happy with the new redemption rates of (2:1). Let us go straight off the bat with evaluating Etihad Guest. Since Jet Airways pulled out from the redemption options of PremierMiles in 2012, the only option for PremierMiles transfer for flying around India on award tickets was Air India or Kingfisher (since defunct). But Etihad joined the PremierMiles transfer options a while ago, and this seems like a great option to be able to fly in India,…
