A few days ago I wrote about the recent arrangement between Spicejet and Optiontown to offer a few of Optiontown products on Spicejet. A few days later, the PR machinery of Optiontown went about town talking about the services and possible pricing. Here are some quotable quotes: On the Flexible Rewards Option, where you could surrender your seat on a potentially full flight and get another flight ticket to your destination, along with a small reward: A passenger can earn up to Rs 1,500 by agreeing to fly on a different time and enabling the airline to make money by selling the seat to a last minute passenger. From Spicejet’s own website on the Flexible Rewards Option: If Optiontown moves…
Register now for the SPG “Take 2” promotion
Starwood Preferred Guest recently announced their Take 2 promotion, which will run between October 1, 2013 and December 15, 2013. You will earn double Starpoints for your stays at participating hotels during this period, and an additional 2,500 Starpoints for every 5 nights you stay. You can get this additional bonus for a maximum of 10,000 Starpoints during the promotion. The registration page for the promotion is now live, and you should go ahead and register, just in case you’re making a stay at an SPG property in the months ahead. The creativity of the guy who designs these promotions and his budgets have obviously not being doing so well, but this is better than nothing that some other hotel…
Going RTW: Flight UA343 (LGA-DEN), United Airlines, First Class
Introduction & Trip Index <AC Maple Leaf Lounge, LGA There were only two reasons I was booked to fly United. First, American Airlines’ prices were pretty high when I was trying to book tickets with them between NYC to Colorado Springs, and I’d never flown a turbo prop plane, so I thought I might as well hitch the 40 minute ride flight between Denver & Colorado Springs and get a Dash 8-400 on my list of planes flown. The LGA-DEN segment was upgraded to First ahead of the flight due to my United status. After going past TSA, headed straight to the gate where the plane was already boarding. This was going to be a Boeing 757-200 flight, with the…
Review: Doubletree by Hilton, Goa (Arpora)
For the recently gone Independence Day long weekend, I decided that it would be a nice idea to go back to Goa during the rains. Usually, my preference is to go to South Goa and the Park Hyatt is one of my favourite resorts there. However, this time the brother and I decided to head to North Goa, since I found out that the Hilton now had a property there. This Hilton was actually an independent property, which was reflagged as the Doubletree only in 2012. Too bad, my brother could not make it at the last minute due to other commitments, however I decided to proceed with the trip regardless. After arriving on an uneventful flight from Mumbai, I…
Review: American Express Lounge, Mumbai Airport, Terminal 1C
Just this past long weekend, I was headed out to Goa for a vacation. Usually, I am accompanied by people, so I do not end up using the American Express Lounge at Terminal 1C, but the Carnations Lounge instead. However, since I was alone, and I had access to the lounge via my Jet Airways Amex, I decided to give it a go this time around. The lounge is set inside the Carnations Lounge itself (as a separate enclosure), The same lounge also houses Jet Airways & Go Air passengers, Priority Pass, MasterCard & Visa Access, and the recent Diners Club bearing passengers. In short, it is a crowd out there and hence I’d anyday prefer to access the Amex…
Comparing @Jetairways, @Indigo6e and @flyspicejet
I recently discussed the new presence of Indigo on Twitter, which makes it the fourth domestic airline from India to get on Twitter. The other ones, in the order of their Twitter account being established are/were: @JetAirways (2008), @FlyKingfisher (2008), @FlySpiceJet (2009) and now @Indigo6e (2013). Now, I am no social media expert, but I thought I’d share my thoughts and experiences with you on all the Indian airlines on Twitter. Twitter, in my view, is a broadcast-engagement channel for individuals and businesses now. It came a long way from being microblogging, where one put out one-liners about what they were feeling or doing. Maybe my views are colored by my great experiences with @AmericanAir and @DeltaAssist, with whom I…
Going RTW: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, Central Terminal, LaGuardia
Introduction & Trip Index <Holiday Inn, LGA UA 343 (LGA-DEN), United, First> I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but I’ve actively started to avoid early morning flights. I’ve done my fair share in the past, and maybe I’ll do more, but I try and plan around them as much as I can. However, this was one of those days when flying early morning was unavoidable, and hence I went over to LGA, groggy! After collecting my boarding pass, I walked over to the security check area. I needed a quick coffee and something to start my day,…
Airport trips for INR 399 in Delhi/Gurgaon & Bangalore, and INR 50 credit for signup
I’ve previously written about my experiences with OlaCabs. From thereon, I’ve continued to use them because in spite of some hiccups, they are better off than the fleet cab services, who have become unreliable and do not turn up. In Delhi and Bangalore, OlaCabs has been running a promotion for a while, which allows for travel from any part of the city to the airport for a flat price of Rs. 399 only. For those of you who stay in these cities, you obviously know that airports are way out of the city, and cabs cost quite a bit. For instance, a regular non-airconditioned cab from my Delhi home to the airport costs me Rs. 550, a radiocab costs me…
Indigo offers a 10% base fare discount to registered members
Indigo is promoting a new way to get users to register with them for effective targeting and marketing. I’ve usually been booking my Indigo tickets without logging into my Indigo account, however, I heard that they’re offering a new 10% off base fare coupon code to members who log-in and book tickets. This promo code popped up when I logged into my account yesterday, and it offers a 10% discount on the base fare of Indigo Airlines on any route. Take note, base fare means just the base fare, not the base fare & fuel surcharges, as it is demonstrated by this example below, random date search of fares, without the promocode. The fare is INR 6,882 + INR 100…
Going RTW: Holiday Inn LaGuardia NYC
Introduction & Trip Index <EY 101 (AUH-JFK), Etihad, First AC Maples Club Lounge, LGA> After my long wait in the queues for passport control, I was kind of tired. So I asked the chauffer to drive me to the hotel and dozed off for 20-30 minutes in the car itself. On arrival, I found myself in a small little cute hotel, which was good enough to spend one full jet-lagged night before heading on for Colorado Springs. Surprisingly, while the redemption rates for this one were 25,000 IHG Club points per night, those for a Holiday Inn Express nearby were 30,000 IHG Club points per night. I did not…
Air India Awards to Australia now available
Air India is launching a new flight from Delhi to Melbourne & Sydney on their B787s later this month. Air India has just opened up the award availability on this segment, and like it is with Air India, there is ample award opportunities in Business as well as Economy. For dates closer to the launch, here is the availability on a random date. You see 2 seats in Economy & Business each. I went in a little further into October And then into next March I find this to be an extremely reasonable pricing for award tickets both on the economy as well as business class of the plane, considering that this would be about 12 hours of flying time.…
