Hotel Review: Four Points by Sheraton, Jaipur

by Ajay 1 Comment

a room with a couch and chairs

Flight Review: Indigo, BOM – JAI, 6E 207, Economy My trip was going to be just an overnight one, because I had other commitments back in Mumbai on Sunday. Hotels in Jaipur, even the chain ones, are pretty cheap I’d say, and at the time of making this reservation, Four Points was working out to a very cheap deal of about INR 3000 inclusive of breakfast. While it is not all the way in the centre of the city, one could easily get conveyance from here to the old Jaipur areas. We arrived into Jaipur pretty early, and had requested early check-in ahead of arrival. The hotel was not very full, so I did get a confirmation that early check-in…

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Airfare sales: Indian airlines going for each others jugulars?

by Ajay 3 Comments

Considering this is my personal blog, this could be my op-ed piece this weekend. I’ve been noticing two trends this year. Firstly, a certain red airline has been putting out a lot of fare sales across the board this year. I have lost count and I haven’t even put out all the sales on the blog but only a few of them. Have a look: Jet Airways, Indigo and SpiceJet offering Indian fare sales till August 4, 2014 Spicejet & Indigo offering sale fares for travel between August to October 2014 SpiceJet INR 999 sale for 2015 dates SpiceJet and Indigo 40% off sale fares till June 19 Selective Fare Sales on Jet Airways and SpiceJet today SpiceJet selling tickets…

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Jet Airways, Indigo and SpiceJet offering Indian fare sales till August 4, 2014

by Ajay Leave A Comment

A fare sale a week keeps the customers happy and flying, while the airlines, they keep ‘em drying out of cash. Yet, this is the reality of the Indian market and somehow we are back to the days 2-3 years back when airlines would drop their prices frequently to get each others’ customers to fly on their airlines. How they call it, is stoking demand, but I guess mostly it is the same people who’d have flown anyways moving their business elsewhere. SpiceJet, as usual, brought out another bout of fare sale this week. These sales have given them marketshare. They are selling discounted tickets till the end of August 3, 2014 (India Standard Time), for travel between September 1,…

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Hyatt Flash Sale: 19 India properties at 50% off

by Ajay 8 Comments

Take a break, airfare sales. Hyatt is out with a flash sale, open from today till August 15, 2014 where they are offering a straight 50% off Daily Available Rates as a part of their Monsoon Flash sale in India. Here are the salient Terms & Conditions: Book between 01AUG14 00:00 Hours and 15AUG14 23:59 Hours , Indian Standard Time Stay between 01AUG14-10JAN15 Blackout Dates: 01NOV14-15DEC14 Full Prepayment, non-refundable, no changes Now, Hyatt has a total of 19 properties around India, and this promotion is valid across the 19 properties as long as you book within the timelines. Take a look at this rate on the Hyatt website, for instance: Here is a list of the properties along with the…

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Citibank doubling miles on PremierMiles to Prestige conversion

by Ajay 28 Comments

I have to admit I love it how things work out sometimes. I’m a Citibank PremierMiles fan, and I have been one since November 2011. We’ve had a little bit of our love hate in 2012, but I’ve come to terms with it and moved on to live with the new reality ever since. Now, I’ve earned a lot of PremierMiles over the years, but the only true redemption I’ve made has been last year, when I flew Singapore Airlines LAX-SIN-BOM in Business Class with them. Otherwise, the PremierMiles just lie in my account, and I transfer them whenever needed, since they never expire. Anyhow, so, last month I finally decided to apply for the Prestige, which I’ve loved since…

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So how long does it take to upgrade an AAdvantage account again?

by Ajay 4 Comments

That is the question I am looking for an answer for, seems I can’t find it. See, I started with American Airlines AAdvantage program a few years back, and I’ve been an Executive Platinum for two years in a row. Last year, hardly travelled with them, and also this was the year they killed their policy for a soft landing, so I went straight to Member level as of March 1, 2014. Sigh, as much as I hate to let it go, I love my AAdvantage miles too much and also the program. I think it is one of the best out there in terms of mileage value. So i decided to see if I could crawl back from being…

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Jet Airways nickel and dimes me for INR 50

by Ajay 6 Comments

I’m not a sucker for excess payments to any sort of travel and hospitality providers, yet, this past weekend I saw myself shelling out about a whole INR 50 to Jet Airways for no good reason. <Rant> You see, a couple of years back Jet Airways had this very nice idea that they should be charging customers for delivering printouts of the ticket at the airport. Maybe they were overburdened with these requests, and hence it made sense at that point of time. For the uninitiated, at a point of time it used to take the inspection of a hard copy of the ticket/boarding pass for same day travel, along with a Photographic ID document to access any airport in…

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Have you won yourself our birthday giveaway?

by Ajay Leave A Comment

Earlier this week, I realised a bit late that it was the blog’s birthday, and I decided to open up a small giveaway for all of you for your continuous support to this blog over the past 3 years. I asked you a simple question… your favourite post from the past three years? I got some common threads in the reply: My proposal in Paris planning trip My 2014 Credit Card Strategy Comparison of the best mileage-earning credit cards in India Goa Park Hyatt Review AwardWallet, of course At random, from the 35 entries received, I chose a winner with Random.org And the winner is Vivek, who said: Ajay,I am considering getting myself a Citibank Prestige card, and therefore my…

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JetPrivilege changes mileage earning w.e.f. August 1, 2014

by Ajay 1 Comment

Yesterday, I had a lot of highs and lows throughout the day, specially, when Jet Airways almost gutted the international redemption chart, and then withdrew their act later, commenting that it was a mistake and genuine enhancements are coming to the program. Jet Airways was the first domestic airline to offer 100% miles on domestic sectors, a move they initiated in 2012, and offers these on all fare classes except maybe one. Air India has still not followed suit, and they frequently offer 25-50% of flown miles on most fare classes except the highest ones. Anyhow, after yesterday’s snafu, I got a mailer last night, which I’m sure a lot more members would have also received. This discussed the new…

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JetPrivilege clarifies: Enhancements are in, gutting is out

by Ajay 5 Comments

This afternoon, I wrote about the changes to the Jet Airways frequent flyer program JetPrivilege, which was recently bought over by Etihad as a part of their investment in Jet Airways. Subsequent to the post, this evening, I heard from Manish Dureja, who now heads the JetPrivilege company, and explained to me the changes and the perspective to the changes. First and foremost, he clarified that the changes are not going to be all negative, but mostly positive for the customer. He explained that while they’ve been intending to do a lot over the years, he has been working with his team over the past 3 years to overhaul the program, which now looks possible given they are a loyalty…

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Breaking: Jet Airways redemption award chart gutting without any notice!

by Ajay 9 Comments

Update: Jet Airways came back with a clarification. Check here. The ball has dropped. This is unofficial but a developing story. Okay, enough for the sensationalism. This morning, I was playing around with the Jet Airways website, trying to tuck in a redemption or few. I hadn’t gotten in on their up to 50% off sale fare, so I wanted to make some redemptions to go places. I noticed that there are changes in the award chart. Get some water, gulp it down, and then lets go over the changes till the end. Domestic Redemptions: Between –30 to +20% miles in most cases from October 2014 Here is a link to the old redemption chart. While I did not manage…

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