I feel foolish, and a little bit annoyed, but mostly angry! I am the guy who books his Diwali tickets months out to be there with the family in Delhi during the festive season. It is like that one fixture which is completely fixed on my calender. This year, due to some work commitments, I was not being able to pick the final date to fly out to Delhi. By the time I could, look what had happened already…. The very expensive fares remain. A day or two before I checked, 31 Oct was going for only 17K INR! Jet Airways was gone for sure. The day I was booking my tickets, the 31 October fares were quoting only…
Air India won an award, what? What? WHAT?
I have my jaw dropped as I write this. I am slightly surprised that Air India can win an award for good service! And I am trying to figure this out, so stay with me till I figure this out! A tweet appeared on my timeline this evening and I rubbed my eyes when I saw it. It said something to the effect of Air India winning an award for good quality service. It kind of reminded me of the time I last got on an AI plane domestic and I was stranded for approximately 24 hours before I got on the next one. It also reminded me of the time when I got on an AI plane to Singapore…
To go or not to go low cost in India is the question? Kingfisher says no, Jet yes!
Indian aviation was the mainstay of the rich and the famous and the honchos till 5-7 years back when yield management was not around, and almost all tickets on a trunk route such as BOM-DEL would cost you upwards of INR 10K (US$ 200) for a 700 miles flight. And then came Air Deccan, the first low-cost carrier in India who launched in 2003 and everyone was forced to drop prices to get a share of the passengers who wanted to get on a plane thanks to Deccan’s INR 1 (2 Cents) and INR 500 (US$ 10) tickets. Air Deccan’s success in gaining mindshare and marketshare led to the launch of other LCCs in India such as Spicejet, Indigo and…
Its a firesale: Jet Airways and Kingfisher reduce fares on routes where Indigo will fly!
I finally begin to sense a pattern here, and this is clearly thanks to the new kid on the block: Indigo (6E) which started its international operations as of September 1, 2011 with a DEL-DXB flight. Indigo already has a schedule in place to launch flights to Dubai, Muscat, Singapore and Bangkok over between September 2011 and October 2011 from Delhi and Mumbai. Here is a post I wrote about Indigo turning 5 and getting ready to go international. Indigo has started to offer INR 9,999 and equivalent fares in other currencies to celebrate this milestone. Here is an extract of the launch schedule from their website. Indigo, being an all Airbus A320 fleet, will fly the same aircraft to…
Sign-up to save Jet Privilege, here!
The ongoing changes to Jet Airways FFP are just a small episode in the saga that has been playing out for a while. Over a period of time you must have found me singing praises of their service levels, but also the difficulties in getting benefits as a frequent flyer with Jet Airways. Here are some of the issues faced in the past: Non-availability on Jet Airways F for mileage redemption Limited availability on Jet Airways J for mileage redemption Upgrades don’t clear Parity in redemption for Jet Airways and Jet Airways Konnect (the low-cost brand) Except for the first issue, I can personally vouch for each of these issues to have happened to me. Considering I do not have…
Erosions to the Jet Privilege frequent flyer program – one privilege at a time!
If you live in India and fly domestic often, you always really had the choice of aligning with one of the three major domestic airlines: Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines. Air India has been much in the news already for their lack luster service, management issues and the run-in with the Star Alliance. Kingfisher’s claim to fame is its glamour factor and the association with the beer major Kingfisher! Its financial troubles are well-known too. However, it is still keeping its head above the water. The only full-service Indian airline then which has made real progress over the past years has been Jet Airways. They’ve managed to put their wings out of India at various destinations, and a…
Review: Mumbai Airport (BOM) and Airborne to Chennai (MAA) on 9W 469 in Economy
Introduction & Trip Index Since I was going to be heading to Colombo via Chennai, I arrived at the Mumbai Airport domestic for my check-in on the BOM-MAA leg of my trip on Jet Airways (9W 469). I was going to be seated at the back of the plane, but I found some amusing things happening around here! Jet Airways wanted to prove a point, that they would take care of this entire trip to go event free, because I’ve been poking holes in their service delivery for a short while now. Since this was a long weekend coming up, there was the obvious long queues at the airport on the evening wanting to fly somewhere. On arrival at the…
Here is how to win a free IHG hotel night
Earlier today, IHG, the parent company of the InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and other brands of hotels launched the Best Price Guarantee. The deal is simple, they believe their website has the best prices for an IHG hotel, and if someone can find a lower price, they will give away a free night and match the lower price throughout the remainder duration of the stay. To celebrate this guarantee being launched, IHG is giving out 250 free nights to participants in the US, Canada and UK. All you have to do is to tweet to @priorityclub about what you would do with the free night, along with a hashtag #BestPriceGuarantee and the link to the rules at bit.ly/rulesihg. They…
20% bonus on conversion to King Club Miles till November 30 2011
One World elect member Kingfisher Airlines is offering a 20 percent bonus on the transfer of various credit card and hotel reward points to its King Club loyalty program through 30th November 2011. The bonus is valid on a wide variety of participating credit cards, largely Indian, such as the HDFC Bank Credit Cards, ICICI Bank Credit Cards, Citibank, Axis Bank Credit Cards. Here is the promo details and the list of participating partners. If you accumulate American Express Membership Reward points, even these post with a 20% bonus. Indian members of the American Express MR program get a conversion ratio of 1.25 MR points for 1 King Club Mile on all Indian Rupee card spends. Using this offer, you…
Priority Club fall promo is live now!
Just a reminder for all of you, that the Priority Club fall promo, which I blogged about a while ago, is now live since September 15. The promo, valid till December 31, 2011 allows you to to earn upto 80K Priority Club points for your upcoming stays at the IHG properties. IHG is trying to get you to experience more of their brands rather than tuck in at your favourite Intercontinental or Holiday Inn, and hence you get a higher multiplier every time you stay at a new brand (uptil the 4th one). Check out my analysis of the fall offer here.
Dear KLM, why try to rip me off and then make me use the throwaway pricing trick?
Last week, I was in Zurich for a quick work trip, and while I was arriving from Brussels, I was going to depart onwards to Amsterdam Schipol for the next leg of my trip. While I could get BRU-ZRH as another leg on my BOM-BRU-BOM ticket (since Jet Airways had a interline partnership with Swiss), I found some pretty exhorbitant fares on the orphan leg of ZRH-AMS. To give you a bit of background, I had some constraints, this being a business trip. I was working the whole day in Zurich, and I did not want to arrive in AMS very late in the evening considering my eventual destination was Rotterdam which is a while away in terms of travel…
