I know everyone around here has been busy pondering about the flip flop that American Airlines made about fuel surcharges on the AAdvantage program for the past few hours. Turns out it was a false alarm, so maybe its time to get back to regular scheduled business. Just as a reminder, I had put in a giveaway for a total of 50,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points being given away by Hyatt a couple of days back. The Giveaway is to celebrate the upcoming New Possibilities promotion. You can head up to the original post to enter, and find out ways to get bonus entries as well. The giveaway is open for participation till Friday August 30, 2013. All the best!…
Some GoIbibo.com discount codes going away
A reader of the blog, Girija Prasad, has sent out to me two INR 500 discount codes from GoIbibo.com, which are valid for use till August 31, 2013, and date of travel is completely open. The two codes are published below, and they are valid for one-way flight bookings only. skaKyXxgftS 7pAb4qHrAw6 In case you use these codes, please let me know via the comments section, and if you have any more codes, do let me know as well. Safe travels, and thank you Girish for paying it forward. Edit: Looks like multiple people can use the same codes, so do try it out and report back if it works like that. Related Post: PremierMiles adds GoIbibo.com as earn/burn partner Live…
SPG offering sweepstakes for 250K Starpoints
SPG has just unveiled their “Take a spin with SPG” sweepstakes which seems to bring quite some serious points on the table for participating. Out here, participating would lead to an entry in the sweepstakes, apart from instant prizes for 46 of the participants daily as well. All you got to do is to spin a virtual globe and land on a Starwood destination. If you are the first to play the game at a randomly selected winning time or if no one plays at such time and you are the first to play thereafter, the screen will immediately open and a winning message will be displayed indicating that you are a potential Instant Win Prize winner. Here are the…
Earning miles on a credit card and being paid for it
The recent festival season in India presented an interesting opportunity to earn miles & points, and also be paid for it. One of the banks in India was offering gift cards at a discount on the face value of the gift card, which essentially meant you would be getting more money to spend on the card than how much you paid for it. There was a 5% discount, so if you bought the gift cards worth INR 3,000, you only paid INR 2,850 for it. I was able to purchase this gift card with a points earning credit card issued in India, who gave me their normal points structure on this spend. In essence, I was earning miles, and roughly…
Get set for Hyatt’s ‘New Possibilities’ and 50K GP points giveaway
A promotion from Hyatt is always looked forward to, especially when it gives me the opportunity to run a giveaway for all of you. Just last week, Hyatt announced their New Possibilities promotion for the Fall season, which runs between September 9, 2013 and November 30, 2013. The promotion is designed in a manner to increase your count of nights with the Hyatt brands. Once you complete your first 5 nights during this promotion period, you get a 5,000 GP points bonus. On completing 10 nights, you get another 10,000 GP points bonus, and so on till 20 nights. You can register for the promotion between September 9, 2013 and October 31, 2013, and stays upto November 30, 2013 will…
Register for IHG’s The Big Win promo to unlock your personalised offers
IHG has just launched their The Big Win promotion, one of the bigger and more interesting hotel promotions this year. This one is being compared with their Crack the Case promotion a few years back, and justifiably so. The Big Win is a multilayered promotion, where you stand to gain multiple milestones on accomplishing different tasks in the promotion. If you’re an existing member of the IHG Club (previously Priority Club), you will get a personalised offer once you register. This will be valid for stays between September 1 to December 31, 2013. There are different offers out there, for example, Mommy Points, Miles for Blighty, One Mile at a Time, Loyalty Traveller they all report different versions of the…
100 Taj Inner Circle points bonus for booking Taj Hotels via website
I’m sure a lot of my readership travels and stays around India in the Taj Hotels. Taj Hotels run their own loyalty program for their hotel chains across the world (brands include Taj, Vivanta & Gateway). They offer 100 bonus TIC (Taj Inner Circle) points per continuous stay, if you book it via the websites of the Taj Hotels (www.tajhotels.com, www.vivantabytak.com or www.thegatewayhotels.com). Since Taj redemption stays start only 350 TIC points, a 100 TIC points seem to be very valuable, and if you redeem them for Taj Gift Certificates, they are worth INR 500 (or $8 approximately). Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
JetPrivilege extends 20% off redemptions for domestic & 25% off for international travel
JetPrivilege has been running a great promotion since March 2012, where they offer a 20% discount on the published requirement of JPMiles on any domestic sector in the the business or economy section of the plane, if you book your award ticket using their website JetAirways.com. This promotion is not available for you to call and book, or book via a ticketing centre. The promotion is usually run for a period of 6 months or so, and has been extended on a rolling basis. The last announcement for the promotion put it out till September 30, 2013 for booking and travel. Now, Jet Airways has updated their website to indicate that the promotion date has been extended till March 2014.…
Details on Spicejet’s Flexifly with Optiontown
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…
