Hyatt Hotels is celebrating the Chinese Year of the Horse, and they are offering select participants a chance to add 100 Gold Passport points to their account on the occasion. While this is a targeted promotion, many have reported success without receiving the email about this, and the points credit pretty quickly into your account. All you got to do is to land up on the promo page, and punch in your Gold Passport number to get your 100 points credited to your account. While 100 points are not a lot, and you can’t do anything independently with them, they surely add to the pool and can be used for extending the validity of your Hyatt Gold Passport account. Related…
INR 40,000 Taj Vouchers for American Express Platinum Charge Card signup
American Express Platinum is one of the foremost cards from the privileges perspective around the globe, backed by the well-known American Express customer service. I remember when they launched the card in India about 6-7 years back, it was an invite-only product, with tonnes of privileges, but also some solid signup gifts such as Longines Watches & Membership Reward Points for signup, to justify the INR 50,000 + taxes membership fee per annum. Amex’s sole competitor in this lifestyle card space was the Citibank Ultima, which till last year, provided 50K JP Miles, 5 JP Upgrade vouchers and JetPrivilege Platinum status, however, the proposition got significantly diluted, and as a result, I personally cancelled my Citibank Ultima credit card recently…
$1450 business/first R.T. to the USA and back from Colombo
[Update: Deal now appears to be pulled] A new fare has emerged for travel from Colombo to Dallas/Fort Worth and back to Colombo, which includes Business Class on Sri Lankan/Etihad, First Class on Etihad and First Class on American Airlines, which is $1450 all inclusive. For positioning, Indians could always use a flight from Jet Airways or Sri Lankan, while other South East Asian nations should also not be hard to position. The fare is available for $1300 onwards, if you book Colombo – Abu Dhabi – Chicago – Dallas, but this would be an all business class fare. If you route yourself via Paris, you’d also get to experience the wonderful Etihad First class along the way, and get…
DGCA downgraded by FAA to Category II
In a not-so-surprise move by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), after their second review of the Directorate General of Indian Aviation (DGCA) in December 2013, they have downgraded the rating to Category 2, putting India in the same league as Ghana, Barbados and Bangladesh apart from some other countries (a total of 12). The inference of this is that the DGCA does not comply with the safety standards set by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Here is the list of FAA ratings in Excel Worksheet format. The implications of this are that there can be surprise checks on aircrafts of Indian carriers flying to the USA, and till the rating is brought back to Category 1, Air India and Jet…
Great Indian Fare Sale 2: SpiceJet, Indigo & GoAir offer 30% off
This morning, less than a week after the 50% off fare sales from all 5 domestic airlines Spicejet, Indigo, GoAir, Air India and Jet Airways/JetKonnect got over, Spicejet was back in the market with a second fare sale this morning, this time promising 30% off on weekday travel for booking 30 days out. Indigo matched the fares in a few hours. While I wrote this, GoAir came into the mix as well. [Update: Air India and Jet Airways seemed to have joined this sale as well on the night of Friday 31 January 2014] The key terms and conditions on this one as follows: Book between 31 January 2014 and 2nd February 2014 for +30 day travel upto 15 April…
Uber launches in Chennai + last day for double referral signup
While I’ve been waiting for Uber to come to my city of Mumbai, Uber has gone ahead and launched in Secret Uber mode (Beta) in Chennai last evening. This is the fourth city they’ve launched in India, which means Mumbai does not get the privilege of Uber in January 2014. The other cities are Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad. Here is how my first experience with them went in Delhi. Now, Uber in Chennai can be ordered via the smartphone app for iOS and Android phones, and all you need is a credit card number fed into your phone app to be able to bill the rides to, since Uber works cashless and you don’t have to pay when you release…
Lufthansa considering bringing the A380 to India this year
While the initial reaction from most carriers about the new rules for the A380 in India was muted, airlines seem to be now coming out of the hiding to make a commitment to the Indian market, or so it seems. While Singapore Airlines seems to have a low-hanging fruit because of their recently concluded bilateral negotiations with India, it now seems that Lufthansa has also made up their mind to introduce the A380 in India within the year. Christopher Franz, the CEO of Lufthansa, made this statement earlier this week to Reuters: We are interested to use the A380 also for the major Indian markets The press also notes that Lufthansa planned to use the jet in India but the…
Jet Airways adding flights to Abu Dhabi from Bangalore & Hyderabad, offers 10% discount
Jet Airways is on an expansion spree to Abu Dhabi. After it’s Chennai – Abu Dhabi launch, and is adding two more flights to Abu Dhabi from Hyderabad and Bangalore, from March 1, 2014. These flights will be on 737 aircraft, and the schedule is as below. To kick off these sectors, Jet Airways is offering a 10% off on economy as well as business class tickets on these routes, only via its website www.jetairways.com. Unfortunately, this discount is not stackable with the 5% base fare discount offered by Jet Airways on its co-branded credit cards. Related Post: Jet operationalizes the Abu Dhabi scissor hub, to reintroduce JFK Join over 2600 people who check-in daily to find out about the…
Air India planning to offer inflight internet
Air India is trying to find a unique selling point to stay relevant to the travellers it serves, and in-flight internet might just be it from their perspective. After the new found acceptance from Star Alliance, they might just be trying to build a customer-focussed organisation. According to The Times of India, the airline is now investigating the proposition to buy and install wifi internet services on their planes. As per the report, the early steps have been taken to look at vendors, and while this may not indicate that it will have wifi anytime in the next few months or years, it is a start. AI chairman Rohit Nandan has set up a panel of top AI officials to…
India approves A380s to fly into the country
Beginning of this month, I’d written a short post peeping into what I expected to see in the year ahead with respect to Indian aviation. I am happy to see that 2 bullet points out of that list can already be struck off. First, Mumbai’s Terminal 2 has already been inaugurated and airlines will migrate to International operations here in a matter of weeks. Now, this afternoon (India Time), India’s aviation ministry has made a much expected announcement, which allows for the superjumbo Airbus A380 planes to fly to India. Till last year, India had prohibited the A380 from flying into India because of the lack of readiness to accommodate this double decker plane, and in part to protect national…
Last Chance: Air India 30 days+ sale ends today
Last week, all the domestic airlines of India had brought out their fare sales, which was first started by Spicejet, and then followed by Indigo, Go Air, Air India and Jet Airways (Jet Konnect) in that order. While the other airlines have tempered it down and finished off with their sales over the weekend, reader Sriram Hariharan alerted me via Twitter that the Air India fare sale has been extended till the end of today. A notice on the Air India website reads, Air India announces the extension of the Jaldi Jaldi Sale offer. Discounted Fares on domestic sectors across the network Period of Sale : Upto 27th Jan 2014 Period of travel : 21st Feb till 15th April 14…
