I’ve liked the Indigo brand from the word go, including their IATA identifier 6E, their look and feel and their tongue in cheek approach to everything including in-flight catering, crew to their advertising. Most of all, their on-time performance and the tight-ship approach which they follow to ensure a professional experience on every flight. However, it looks like of late the customer-centric approach is being taken over by some amount of arrogance. I’ve met passengers in the past few months who’ve complained of service without a smile, and non-responsiveness from the airline when things don’t go right. I’ve personally faced this issue with them, since they are the only airline who don’t seem to be interested in refunding customers the…
Etihad upgrades its loyalty program with enhancements for top-tier
While my experience with Etihad Guest (Etihad’s loyalty program) has not been the best till date, Etihad may be a serious contender for loyalty games in India given that sooner than later they will have a equity tie-up with Jet Airways. Etihad introduced a Gold Elite tier in 2011, and offered status matches to their Gold tier in 2012, which was a botched up exercise at best. Just today, Etihad has enhanced, and by that I really mean enhanced, their benefits on the Etihad Guest Gold Elite tier, some of which are good additions. The new program enhancements include the following: Increase in tier bonus miles from 50% to 75% complimentary nomination to Etihad Guest Gold tier to a member…
Hyatt announces free internet + breakfast at 5 new hotels in India
Hyatt Corp. recently introduced the Hyatt brand in India, by taking over the management of five erstwhile Ista hotels in India. This brand will be the fifth Hyatt brand to be introduced in India after 11 properties already operate under the Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency & Hyatt Place brands. This switch to the Hyatt brand happened at the beginning of April. The five hotels that join the Hyatt group are Hyatt Bangalore (M.G. Road), Hyatt Hyderabad (Gachibowli), Hyatt Pune, Hyatt Amritsar and Hyatt Ahmedabad. To mark the occasion, Hyatt has now launched a new promotion offering complimentary Internet & Breakfast at these hotels, if you use the promocode GOPEN to book your stay. The promotion is valid for…
Jet Airways downgrades Mumbai–Hong Kong flight from B777 to A333
As per the latest update from AirlineRoute.net, published today, Jet Airways is downgrading its Mumbai-Hong Kong-Mumbai daily service from a 3-class flight flown by a Boeing 777 ER to a 2-class service flown by an Airbus A330 (200 or 300) series aircraft. The new scheduling will be as follows: till 30APR13 A330-300 01MAY13 – 11MAY13 A330-200 21MAY13 – 08JUN13 A330-200 While the reasons can be loads, or efficiency (not having to fly empty first class suites and waste fuel), this sure allows passengers in business to try the new Jet Airways Business Class on the A333, something I flew a few days back. This should also be a relief from the bone crushing 10 abreast configuration on the B777ER for…
Jet Airways introduces transit between Mumbai International & Domestic terminals
Jet Airways has recently made some amends to the international passengers who use their gateway in Mumbai and need to transit further into the country. Till a few days back, one would have to arrive at Mumbai’s terminal 2, clear immigration & customs and collect their baggage, redeposit it with the transfer desk, and then go to Terminal 1B using an airport operated shuttle bus, which used to frequent about every 30 minutes making it a very cumbersome process. Now, they’ve secured a couple of gates at the International Terminal (Terminal 2) where incoming international passengers on Jet Airways flights between 0230 AM and 0645 AM at Mumbai will be able to transit directly to their flights from Terminal 2C.…
Reminder: Giving away AwardWallet accounts
A couple of weeks ago, I started up a giveaway of free AwardWallet accounts. Like I wrote in that post: I then discovered AwardWallet after this, which is quite the king of the miles & points tracking websites for me. Some of the top reasons for using it: It allows me to track the mileage balance of my entire family using one single login, in one single place. Not to forget, it keeps me abreast with the expiry details of the award miles/points as well, helping me use them rather than lose them. All you have to do, is to enter your username and password the first time. They support 562 different loyalty programs out there, including air, hotel, car…
Get the free Hilton Gold status for your stays in Hilton across India
The Hilton HHonors Gold status is one step below the Hilton HHonors Diamond status, but has most of the same benefits as the Diamond status. Here is a quick recap of Hilton Gold benefits: The key benefits are really the space available upgrades which can be good at some hotels, (I was upgraded to a Junior Suite in Washington DC once), and the complimentary breakfast, which is again hit and miss (some hotels offer a full breakfast as well, some would only do bread and juice – as in, real continental breakfast) Hilton has been offering a free upgrade to Hilton Gold for people who have a Visa Infinite credit card, residing within Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa or Central…
Review: Flight 9W227 (BRU-BOM), Jet Airways, Premiere (A333)
Introduction Check-in: Clipper Lounge, Terminal 2, Mumbai Airborne: Flight 9W228 (BOM-BRU), Jet Airways, Premiere (A332) Hotel Manhattan, Rotterdam Hotel Sheraton Brussels Airport, Brussels Check-in: Jet Airways Lounge, Brussels Airborne: Flight 9W227 (BRU-BOM), Jet Airways, Premiere (A333) As I arrived at my gate, the familiar long boarding queues were visible. Airlines from India, in any part of the world, do not follow a systematic boarding procedure and this means everyone is crowding out the gate to get on the flight first. Once I could find my way through the crowd on the plane, I turned left and took my first steps onto the new business class cabin of Jet Airways to head towards seat 1K. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, Jet Airways…
FlyingBlue promo reminder: 30K miles biz Mumbai/Europe or 55K miles Mumbai/USA (or back!)
Last month, I had posted about the promo awards that the Flying Blue program of Air France/KLM, where you could potentially get a one-way ticket in business-class cabins to Europe for 30K miles (instead of the normal 60K), and to the USA for 55K miles (30K Mumbai – Europe, 25K Europe – USA –> two separate awards). These promotional awards, are bookable only for the months of March and April 2013. Availability looked swell even at this point of time, with even up to 6 seats available on some dates in the business cabin. So, there you go with about 3 more weeks to make use of this wonderful opportunity. It might not be the best business class in…
Yatra.com promocode for Rs. 1300 off x4 for Citi credit cards in India
Apart from the collaboration with Citibank PremierMiles to offer 10 PremierMiles/Rs. 100 for travel reservations made via Yatra.com, Yatra also has another promotion ongoing for Citibank credit card holders, for cards issued in India. For the month of April 2013, the first 500 travel reservations made everyday on Yatra.com and paid for with a Citibank credit card (issued in India), can use promotion code CITIYAT and take Rs. 1300 off their reservation. If you are not one of the first 500, you still get Rs. 250 off for one-way flight bookings, Rs. 500 off for return flights and Rs. 500 off on hotel reservations. And not just once, this code is valid four times per card, which means if you…
Yatra.com is now a PremierMiles 10PM earn partner
In its bid to continue to be the best travel credit card in India, Citibank is priming up the PremierMiles credit card again. After adding GoIbibo.com as an earn and burn partner last week, Yatra.com is the next to come on board. As per a new notification on Yatra.com, all flight, hotel and holiday bookings made with your Citibank PremierMiles credit card on their website will earn 10 PremierMiles/Rs. 100 spent, in line with the regular PremierMiles earning rate available on directly booking with the airlines itself. To start with, the promotion is valid till August 31, 2013. Also, it looks like Citibank is putting in more efforts in this card. There should be a hotel tie-up in place soon…
