PointsHound, the hotel booking website which awards you miles to book via their service, has just launched a mobile website, and they are offering 1,000 bonus miles for making your first booking via the mobile website on a cellphone/tablet by December 2, 2013. As per PointsHound, travellers will have access to all of the online-booking features traditionally found on PointsHound.com, including international currency choices and Big Earnings and Double Up rates, in addition to exclusive mobile-enabled services. They are also launching a premium Concierge Service to expedite the arrival experience on all reservations booked on the site at more than 150,000 properties around the globe. Users can check in, check out, request preferred rooms, receive last-minute upgrade offers and even receive status…
Hyatt Hotels offering 30% off on weekend stays & dining at all Indian properties
Hyatt is celebrating 30 years of presence in India, and on this occasion, they are offering 30% off on daily rates across their Indian properties for reservations made by 14th December 2013, and stays made by 15th December 2013. To avail of this offer, you need to be a member of the Hyatt Gold Passport program, and inserting coupon code GPWK30. The promotional code is valid for arrivals on Friday & Saturday and departure on Sunday, for standard room accommodation, except for Goa properties (Park Hyatt Goa & Grand Hyatt Goa) where the discount is only valid for suites. I looked up a few properties to compare this promotional rate with the regular rate, and the difference was apparent. So,…
Etihad acquires 24% in Jet Airways and majority stake in JetPrivilege
Jet Airways has completed the induction of Etihad Airways as a 24% shareholder in the airline, following the initial announcement of this deal in April 2013. Under the deal, Jet Airways issued new shares to Etihad Airways, and the stake of the founder/promoter of the airline, Naresh Goyal, is now down to 51%. James Hogan, who is the CEO of Etihad Airways, and James Rigney, who is the CFO, have also come on the Board of Directors of Jet Airways. In a related move, JetPrivilege, the loyalty program of Jet Airways, which was spun off into a separate company last year, also got sold with 50.1% stake of the JP program now with Etihad. Like I have stated earlier, there…
My Uber experience in Delhi, and get yourself a free ride!
Last week, I decided to pop into Delhi for a little surprise for my mom, to visit her on her birthday and hopefully take her out for dinner. However, life had other plans, and my flight got delayed getting into Delhi by over 45 minutes and my cab came and went away. I thought this wasn’t a good sign, but it really was a good sign to start trying out Uber, which has launched in Delhi in test mode about 3-4 weeks back. As soon as the plane touched the gate, and it was time to get out and get rolling. I brought up the Uber app on my iPhone, and while in my conversations with people I was being…
PremierMiles 50% extra miles bonus have posted
Citibank had offered a 50% bonus miles promotion for spends in August and September 2013. Under the terms & conditions, you would have received 50% bonus miles on all miles earned, i.e., if you earned 10 miles for booking flight tickets, you’d get another 5 miles for booking flight tickets under the promotion making it 15 miles. As a result, I ended up putting a lot of spend on this card, including sometimes booking Jet Airways tickets on this card as well. On Friday, Citibank credited the bonus miles to everyone who was eligible, and yesterday they sent out emails to this effect with the details to everyone who got miles. I personally loved this promotion, since I did not…
Go Air offering Rs. 888 off on flight tickets
GoAir is celebrating its 8th anniversary, and on this occasion, they are offering a discount of Rs. 888/- for tickets booked across their network on their website www.goair.in. The booking period for these tickets is by 11th November 2013, and travel has to be completed by 20th December 2013. The discount is included within your ticket pricing automatically, only if you search via the anniversary promo page, and you don’t need to add any promotional codes to book these tickets. Take an example below, which I tried to book. You see a Rs. 888 discount factored in already. This discount is not available via any travel agents online or offline. Related Posts Go Air joins in on the Jet Airways…
Unlimited lounge access on ICICI-Jet-Amex credit cards, and extra JP Miles
ICICI Bank’s Jet Airways co-branded credit cards have now completed about a full year in the business. When they started, they had a lot of issues with putting out credit cards, most of which are now resolved. Very recently, they offered a special promotion where there were extra JPMiles going out for signing up for the Visa version, or spending on the Visa version of the ICICI Bank 9W credit card. Now, a few important changes made to the product offering. Earlier, there were only 4 complimentary visits allowed per annum to the Altitude Lounge in Mumbai and Delhi. Now, this changes from 1st November 2013 onwards to make it unlimited trips to the lounges. Here are the reviews of…
Citi PremierMiles launches 2x miles promo
Citibank launched another cracker of a promotion this morning, and tied it in with the festival of Diwali. Citibank has done a 50% miles extra promotion a few months back, and this 2x miles promo last year where the top 2000 spenders got rewarded with 2x miles. Now, starting 1st November 2013 to January 31, 2014, you could be one of the top 5000 spenders with your Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card, and you get upto 50,000 bonus PremierMiles for this feat. This being an opt-in promotion, one needs to pre-register by 31 December 2013 and only whose who register will have their spends considered for the promotion. Use this link to register, it takes you to the Citibank India website.…
IHG Rewards Club 24-hour flash sale coming Monday 21 October 2013
Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) club, is planning to run a flash sale on Monday 21 October 2013, 10 AM EST, for reward nights at some of their hotels. The promotion will have hotel stays booked for stays between 23 October to 22 November 2013 at 50% to 75% discount from their usual points price. Properties are spread out across China, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Mexico, UAE, Dominican Republic and the United States. Mostly Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza properties, but a couple of Intercontinental Hotels here and there as well, including Madrid, which I remember as the place I’ve had the best Eggs Benedict ever. It is nice to look up the properties and…
Jet Airways begins to offer seat selection for a price
Unbundling has been around for a while, and all the Indian domestic aviation players jumped on the opportunity to monetize their seats. Jet Airways stayed away from this game for a while, only offering their Platinum Members the opportunity to select seats for free. However, earlier this week, they have started to offer a Seat Select feature to all their passengers on the domestic network. Initially, the pre-reservation of seats has been offered on the Boeing 737 network between the 6 key cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Pricing is at INR 500 for the bulkhead Window & Aisle seats, and INR 200 for the bulkhead Window & Aisle of the 5 rows behind the bulkhead. The good…
The SBI Air India Signature Card adds an upgrade voucher!
When I first started out to review the SBI Air India Signature Card, I was basing my review on the information that was provided by SBI Cards in this respect. Now, just like all other new products, I’ve had my fair share of sparring with SBI Cards as well, but yesterday, I got third time lucky and finally managed to submit my application to SBI Cards after two time-wasting attempts by them before. As I was trying to find more information on this credit card, I came across this on the Air India website: Premium privileges include 1 complementary domestic upgrade voucher Complementary lounge access (emphasis, mine) This is not information that was put out by the credit card company.…
