I know it is easy for names to be thrown around, but this one seems to be from a credible source. Spicejet has changed hands and names quite a few times, with the last being the change of management control, when Spicejet was sold to the Sun Group of India. Rumors going around were that Qatar Airways will be investing in the airline. However, Qatar Airways has rubbished this in the past. Last evening, Indian dealmaking website VCCircle however talked about a new participant in the deal, and they say Kuwait Airways may be interested in picking up about 25% of the airline, for a sum of Rs. 1,000 Crores (about $166 million). Unlike Jet Airways where the deal also…
Cleartrip offering Amex cardholders Rs. 1000 discount till July 20
Cleartrip.com has a promotion with American Express till July 20, where you could use coupon code CT1000AMEX and pay with an American Express card for the following reservations, for a maximum of 2 transactions of each type: Domestic roundtrip flights, for any dates, you get Rs. 1000 off Domestic hotel stays for over Rs. 4,000 or more (minimum 2 nights), you get Rs. 1000 off Domestic packages In case you’re planning to book some tickets this week, do pay with your Amex and get this promotion. Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
Going RTW: Etihad First Class Lounge, Abu Dhabi Terminal 3
Introduction & Trip Index < EY205 (BOM-AUH), Etihad, Business EY101 (AUH-JFK), Etihad, First> After a long trip on the bus again, we got out in the oven furnace kind of heat for just a brief moment and hopped into the Terminal 3 building. Even for transit passengers, there was going to be a security check. Like had become the trend so far, I was not being very impressed with the premium-ness of the Etihad experience. There was one premium screening queue as compared to the zillions for the non-premium passengers. And guess what, they closed out the queue right in front of me, transferring those passengers over to regular queue. Let the confusion ensue. After…
Going RTW: Flight EY205 (BOM-AUH), Etihad, Pearl Business
Introduction & Trip Index <Celebrations Lounge, Mumbai T2 Etihad F Lounge, Abu Dhabi T3> Boarding was pretty disorganised, and I’d begin to think this was a Mumbai Airport feature but there are airlines such as Etihad, and back in the day, Kingfisher which would enforce boarding sequence pretty well. So, the incoming flight was delayed, however, instead of going back into the lounge, I just waited in the boarding area. This was my first time being at Gate 1B, so I wasn’t in the know of what I was getting into later. Boarding started about 20 minutes later, and business class was called first, being the highest cabin on this A320.…
Jet Airways extends Bonus on Points to Miles conversion promo to to 30 Sep 2013
Trust Jet Airways to give me egg in my face when I am trying to help you guys sometimes. Jet Airways started a promotion to offer a 20% bonus on converting your credit card points to JP Miles in June, and it was initially scheduled to last only till July 15, 2013. Just when I posted a reminder call yesterday, I got a new mail from 9W, revising the dates. Anyhow, under the extended promotion, you can transfer your various credit card points to Jet Airways JP program right until September 30 to be eligible for a 20% bonus. I did a small test transaction shifting around some of my Payback points, and everything seems to go just fine.…
Going RTW: Celebrations Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 2
Introduction & Trip Index < Introduction EY205, BOM-AUH, Etihad Business Class> The flight timings for Etihad to fly out of Mumbai are at a very odd hour at 4:50 AM in the morning. Odd for me I mean. I usually prefer day time flights, or even with a night flight, a departure closer to midnight so that I can get on the plane and go off to sleep at the earliest. Etihad offers a limousine pickup and drop service for customers flying with them in Business & First Class. Since I was flying Business Class between Mumbai to Abu Dhabi and First Class there on to…
Reminder: 5 days for Amex MR to Avios
In May 2013, American Express and British Airways started to offer a joint conversion bonus, which offered a 30% bonus on converting American Express Membership Rewards (for cards issued in India), to Avios. Amex MR usually convert to Avios @ 2MR = 1 Avios, however, with this promotion, it goes down to 1.54 MR = 1 Avios. The deadline to convert to Avios is by 15 July, so if you’d like to ride on this conversion, I’d advise you to move your MR to Avios within the next day or two. Amex to BA conversions usually take about 24 hours to reflect in the Avios account. You could find the details in the above mentioned post. In June 2013, Jet…
It is a good time to book your festive travel now
Airfares have been hitting the roof, or that is what I have been hearing for a while now. And it has to be the case, with inflation and oil prices both heading upwards, and the instance of Kingfisher going under, that airlines realised they can’t keep on dishing out discounting tickets and hope to even break even, forget making profits. However, sales come out from time to time, and this year we saw SpiceJet, Indigo, Air India and Jet Airways all throwing their hat in the ring every time one of them dropped prices. For my personal travel, as long as I have visibility on various travels, I prefer to book it far out during one of these sales of…
Going RTW: Introduction & Trip Index
Introduction Check-in: Celebrations Lounge, Terminal 2, Mumbai (BOM) Airborne: Flight EY205 (BOM-AUH), Etihad Airways, Pearl Business Class, Airbus A320-200 Check-in: Etihad First Class Lounge, Terminal 3, Abu Dhabi (AUH) Airborne: Flight EY101 (AUH-JFK), Etihad Airways, Diamond First Class, Airbus A340-600 Hotel Holiday Inn LaGuardia Airport, New York Check-in: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, Central Terminal, LaGuardia (LGA) Airborne: Flight UA343 (LGA-DEN), United Airlines, First, Boeing 757-200 Check-in: United Club West, Concourse B, Denver (DEN) Airborne: Flight UA4918 (DEN-COS), United Express, Economy, Dash 8-400 Cheyenne Resort, Colorado Springs Airborne: Flight AA1320 (DEN-DFW), American Airlines, First, Boeing MD-80 Airborne: Flight AA2493 (DFW-LAX), American Airlines, Coach, Boeing 757-200 Check-in: American Airlines/Qantas Flagship Lounge, Los Angeles (LAX) Airborne: Flight AA30 (LAX-JFK), American Airlines, Business,…
Air India pays its employees to fly on free tickets
In one of the most amusing stories I’ve read recently, Air India paid out the value of 700 tickets to its employees, for tickets which were free in the first place. Air India has had a companion flies free promotion on offer for a while, where a full fare ticket in any of the three cabins gets you another ticket in the same cabin free of cost. You could find details of the promotion here. However, as per this news report in the Hindustan Times, The deal is good enough as it is, but in Air India it came to mean other things. There, passengers (read Air India employees) travelled on the free ticket and then sent it to the…
5 days to the Mumbai meet on 13 July 2013
I’ve been looking forward to meet all of you for a while now. This is the reason I am working on organising the first meetup with those of you interested this weekend in Mumbai. You could look up this post for the details. A couple of weeks back when I announced this, I had just got the date in mind, and now we have venue details available as well. The plan is to meet in the afternoon at about 3 PM, in Bandra West, at Gostana. If you’re interested in the food, well, they flip yummy burgers and make lovely salads and all this with a dash of healthy quotient to it. Its a buy your own event, and I…
