It has been a nerve-wracking journey for Air India, but they finally made it. Okay, inspirational speech over. Now time for the real thing. Back in 2007, Air India was invited to join the Star Alliance, with Lufthansa sponsoring its entry. The Government of India practically dropped their pants to make concessions for Lufthansa group to get Air India into the alliance. And then, in July 2011, at the last minute, Air India’s entry into the Star Alliance was put on hold. Ever since then, there has been push and shove, and Jet Airways was also invited to join the alliance. In the backdrop, Air India kept pursuing the alliance again and again. Star Alliance may have been forced to…
Is Indigo offering 72% of their seats on pay for seat selection?
I travel Indigo on and off, and my airline-neutral parents don’t mind travelling on them since their choices are dictated by convenience of time and pricing. I must admit we haven’t given much business to Indigo this year. However, checking them in on a flight on Indigo now, I discovered some anomalies with the recently prescribed unbundling norms of the DGCA. The DGCA has clearly prescribed norms for charging for premium seats which they brought out in 2013. You can look at the PDF here. When they initially notified unbundling, Indigo would ask you for INR 200 for a window/aisle seat, INR 500 for a premium seat (Row 1,2,3, emergency exit), and Rs. 100 for all other seats to be…
Jet Airways 10% off on all international flights till 8th December
Jet Airways has been frequently running fare sales of late, however this one is an unconditional one and hence I put it up here. There is a 10% off on all fares for international travel on any route for JetPrivilege members for today and tomorrow (i.e. 7 & 8 December 2013). These discounts are valid for travel from 20 January 2014 onwards, and on business as well as economy fares. For once, the discount is also clearly marked on the website. For instance this is a random date in January for BOM-BRU-BOM travel while I am logged into my JP account. The fare shows a discount. When I am not logged into my JetPrivilege account, it shows a full fare.…
Citi PremierMiles 50% transfer bonus to Hilton HHonors till December ‘13
Citibank is on a roll with transfer bonuses over the past couple of days it seems. After signing up new transfer partners in IHG Rewards Club, Hilton HHonors, Taj Inner Circle, Malaysia Airlines & Eva Air last month, they are now running a transfer bonus with Singapore Airlines. And now, they are running another transfer bonus with their new partner Hilton HHonors. This time around, if you transfer 10,000 PremierMiles, which convert into 15,000 Hilton HHonors points (due to the 1PM=1.5 HHonors conversion rate), you get an added bonus of 5,000 HHonors points as well. There are no limits to the amount of PremierMiles you can transfer under this promotion and the amount of extra 5,000 HHonors points you can…
20% bonus on Citibank miles conversion to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles
One good part about earning miles neutrally is the choice of transfer partners offered, and the bonuses they run sometimes. For the past two years, we have seen transfer bonuses from Etihad & British Airways on Citibank products, and Jet Airways as well, for Citibank credit cards ex-PremierMiles. Just yesterday, Citibank and Singapore Airlines have begin to offer a 20% bonus on conversion of Citibank points/miles to your Singapore KrisFlyer frequent flyer account. Now while I won’t be able to post a full review of the KrisFlyer program at this moment, but like most programs in Asia, they charge fuel surcharges, and lots of them. However, the Singapore Airlines product is usually top notch, and you get access to a…
Winner for the ITC Culinary Plus voucher
Earlier this week, I had put out an ITC Culinary Plus discount voucher for a giveaway. All you had to do was to tell me where would you like to dine if you received the voucher to yourself. This morning, I used Random.org to select a winner. This was Saurabh, who said: ITC Maratha, MumbaiFingers crossed to be licked! Congrats Saurabh, and there are more such giveaways coming soon, so the rest of you should look out for them! Related Post: Giveaway: Upto 50% off for your meal at an ITC Hotel on us! Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
American Express offering 30,000 JPMiles signup bonus for Jet Airways co-branded credit card
Last year, when American Express and Jet Airways launched their co-branded Jet-Airways American Express Credit Card, they offered a special sign-up bonus of 10,000 JPMiles over and above the welcome gift of 20,000 JPMiles which is the standard on-going offer. However, the sign-up bonus was only available to those who paid the INR 10,000 + taxes as first year fees, hence, I chose to pay the fee in spite of being a JetPrivilege Platinum member and eligible for the credit card free of cost. I was getting miles at INR 0.33 per JPmile, and it was hard to beat that value. On my last Jet Airways flight earlier this week, I saw flyers around the cabin talking about the special…
Giveaway: Upto 50% off for your meal at an ITC Hotel on us!
Those of you who know me a little more than the blog, also know about my love for good food, reason good enough to have been member of the ITC Hotels’ Culinary Plus program for the past year. ITC Hotels have some of the best restaurants in India, such as Bukhara, Dum Pukht & Dakshin, and I’ve received some fantastic discounts at the ITC Hotels restaurants over the past year. I am offering for a giveaway one voucher that I receive as a part of my membership kit, which will enable one reader and his entourage to be able to receive upto 50% off on a meal at an ITC Hotels Restaurant as well. Here is the discount offer, however…
Starwood offers 50% off rates in India
Starwood Hotels are offering a 50% discount for stays between 20th December 2013 and 5th January 2014 for hotels in India and Bangladesh, which you can book with the code DALY50 by 11 December 2013. The following hotels are participating in this sale: Westin The Westin Dhaka The Westin Hyderabad Mindspace The Westin Gurgaon, New Delhi The Westin Sohna Resort & Spa The Westin Mumbai Garden City The Westin Pune Koregaon Park The Westin Chennai Velachery Sheraton Sheraton Bangalore Hotel at Brigade Gateway Sheraton New Delhi Hotel Sheraton Udaipur Palace Resort & Spa Sheraton Park Hotel & Towers, Chennai Le Meridien Le Méridien Kochi Le Méridien Pune Le Méridien Jaipur Le Royal Méridien Chennai Le Méridien Coimbatore The Luxury Collection…
Get 2 Uber rides free in India
Like I’ve mentioned in the past, Uber launched in India in the city of Bangalore in September 2013 and has started testing services in Delhi/Gurgaon in October 2013. New cities they will be offering services in the coming months will be Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, since these cities show up on their website in hiring mode as of now. I had a good experience with Uber a couple of weeks back when I tried out their services in Delhi, when I could get myself a Toyota Camry for the drive from the Delhi Airport to my home. And then, the next day, I had a great trip back to the airport when a BMW 5 series turned up to drive…
Citibank PremierMiles adds Taj InnerCircle, IHG, Hilton HHonors, EvaAir & Malaysia Airlines as conversion partners
My favourite travel credit card, Citibank PremierMiles, has recently worked on its conversion partner list, and added quite some new partners on the list over the past few weeks. The last major addition, to the best of my memory, was in June 2012, when Avios and Delta Skymiles were brought on board as conversion partners. Later than that, Etihad Guest was added to the list. Citibank has wanted to make this card the one-stop product for travel requirements in India. Hence, they have been wanting to add hotel partners for a long time, and finally, they have added three of them in this quarter itself. The new hotel partners include: Taj InnerCircle: 10 PremierMiles = 1 TIC Point IHG Rewards…
