Review: Mumbai Airport (BOM) and Airborne to Chennai (MAA) on 9W 469 in Economy

by Ajay 2 Comments

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…

Continue Reading »

Here is how to win a free IHG hotel night

by Ajay 6 Comments

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…

Continue Reading »

20% bonus on conversion to King Club Miles till November 30 2011

by Ajay Leave A Comment

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…

Continue Reading »

Priority Club fall promo is live now!

by Ajay Leave A Comment

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.

Continue Reading »

Dear KLM, why try to rip me off and then make me use the throwaway pricing trick?

by Ajay 9 Comments

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…

Continue Reading »

A job well done!

by Ajay Leave A Comment

In spite of being a Jet Airways flier most of the times, I have been having an issue with their recent service quality. Maybe it us the tight economic scenario that made them do some tweaks, but it is one good international product out there. Maybe I haven’ t scaled down my expectations in line! However, when I flew with them this past Saturday, on a flight back from Brussels to Mumbai, it was a reminder of the good old times, when everything was as it used to be. The champagne was flowing, the food was warm, the service with a smile and the details all taken care of. Happy with the whole experience, I asked for a feedback form…

Continue Reading »

Flying is healing!

by Ajay 1 Comment

I just did a gruesome 12 hours of flying wherby I realised flying could actually be healing, medically too! Whoa. So I had to get into Zurich before Monday on a work schedule, and I took the trip into Brussels from Mumbai via Jet Airways, and connected with a Swiss flight 2 hours later. Along the way, I had to clear a serpentine long queue for passport control and transit security. Top it up with the fact that my upgrade did not clear, and I had to rough it out in economy for the 9 hours I was on BOM-BRU. But I am surprised at the way I react to flying (in a positive way of course!). Like I reported…

Continue Reading »

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

by Ajay 3 Comments

Upcoming Alert: 9,200 miles over to Europe and back, and a Sunday in Switzerland thrown in! While I have been writing in my head for most of the past week, and on the way back home from work, but for the past few days I have had no hours to put all these thoughts on paper. Why? A trip with two month’s notice going down the wire to a last-minute clincher and the work associated with it. 14-hour workdays at the office and hardly any sleep. My travels and work are deeply interrelated. I work to travel to work to travel to work … you get the gist. And when you are the face of an organisation (or so I…

Continue Reading »

Trip Report: A short vacation in Sri Lanka

by Ajay 3 Comments

Introduction Check-in: Chatrapati Sivaji International Airport, Terminal 1 (Mumbai), Carnations Lounge Domestic Airborne: Flight 9W 469 (BOM – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Clipper Lounge International Airborne: Flight 9W 254 (MAA – CMB), Jet Airways, Economy Taj Samudra, Colombo Exploring Colombo Exploring South-west Sri Lanka Check-in: Bandaranaike International Airport (Colombo) Airborne: Flight 9W 253 (CMB – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Jet Airways Premiere Lounge Airborne: Flight 9W 489 (MAA – BOM), Jet Airways, Economy Conclusion In Feb I decided to take a quick couple of days off from work and hop over to Colombo for a four day vacation. This was going to be rest and recuperation for me, and labelled as a ‘do-nothing’…

Continue Reading »

10,000 MR points/King Miles for referring Amex applications in India

by Ajay 2 Comments

I received an email from American Express while I was travelling a couple of weeks back. This was a promo which they had designed for existing card holders to refer their friends and contacts to American Express for the American Express Kingfisher First Credit Card and the American Express Platinum Reserve Credit Card.                   So, the offer, which seems to be a targetted one, is from a unique tie-up between Amex and LinkedIn in India. I haven’t been at the receiving end of such a marketing offer earlier, and I hold credit cards from most prominent CC issuers in India. The details of the offer are as follows: The applicant of the…

Continue Reading »

BA switches from BA Miles to Avios Points as its loyalty currency from November 2011

by Ajay 2 Comments

a close-up of a logo

The merger of British Airways and Iberia, which was agreed upon in April 2010, was obviously going to lead to synergies amongst the two carriers, but the mileage programs did not see it yet. And now, BA and Iberia have something to show on this aspect. Since both the carriers are going to operate under their own brands, so the Executive Club, BA’s loyalty program retains its name. But BA is promising to change the way you can earn and spend on BA. And it looks like it is taking feedback on the way. Here is a part of an email I just received from the Executive Club, We know how important the Executive Club is to our customers, and…

Continue Reading »