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Review: UK 890 Delhi–Mumbai, Vistara, Economy

by Ajay 18 Comments

a white airplane flying in the sky

Vistara, the new full-service Indian carrier that is a joint venture between Tata Group of India and Singapore Airlines, took to the skies yesterday. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, since Vistara has promised to keep differentiated service as a cornerstone of their strategy. Like I said when Vistara made an initial product reveal, Vistara is hoping to be the Louis Vuitton of Indian Aviation. At the event, I wondered if they really were doing justice to their product with the reveal, because everything they said looked like just words then. Curious to find out if Vistara was all that it promised to be, I had to be on one of their planes. The…

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Flight Review: AI 687 Mumbai-Delhi, Air India, Business Class (B777)

by Ajay 3 Comments

a plane taking off from the ground

A couple of days back, I was supposed to take a Mumbai – Delhi flight, to come back to family for the holidays. Since I kind of like wide body planes and the new GVK Lounge at Terminal 2, I booked myself on AI 101 which does BOM-DEL-JFK, but is a late night flight arriving into Delhi about midnight. However, last minute, I realised Air India was also operating a BOM-DEL flight in the afternoon on their 777s. I guess this is a plan for them to be able to clear the winter rush, as well as accommodate all the people who may get displaced from other flights due to fog. So, I looked at the price, and it was…

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Lounge Review: Air India Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 1A

by Ajay Leave A Comment

a room with white couches and a glass table

Just yesterday, I flew over to Delhi from Mumbai, yet again. I was originally scheduled to get into Delhi on AI101, which is perhaps one of my favourite flights given it gives me access to the Terminal 2 GVK Lounge, and I get to fly a Boeing 777-300ER between the 2 hour Mumbai Delhi segment (the flight further heads to New York from Delhi). However, given that it is winters and Delhi has a massive fog problem, and I did not want to really really get into home middle of the night, I decided to change my plans. I now was going to depart from terminal 1A, from where Air India operates, and this meant I had access to the…

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Review: GVK Business Class Lounge Mumbai Terminal 2

by Ajay 18 Comments

a bar with people behind it

Yesterday, I wrote about the inauguration of the new GVK Lounge at the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2, which came after months of anticipation. I had some work in Delhi today, so I was supposed to take an evening flight from Mumbai to Delhi to get here. The power of mileage tickets, I could just call Air India and swap the ticket from most of their A321 BOM-DEL flights (from Terminal 1) to get a seat on their B77W which flies BOM-DEL-JFK, and hence I could head to Terminal 2 to check out the new lounge. Air India provided me with an invite to the Business Class section of the lounge, located on Level 3, since I am a Flying Returns…

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Lounge Review: Mumbai Terminal 2 Interim Lounge

by Ajay Leave A Comment

a long shot of a room

Planning the Proposal Trip to Paris One of the trip reports I’ve been holding off for a while, for the lack of adequate time to write it up. Like many of the regular readers on this blog would know, I proposed to my girlfriend in Paris this summer, and she said yes. The first thing to do was to of course, get a flight to go to Paris from Mumbai. Like I’ve mentioned before, I was going to use the Mumbai – Paris flight on Jet Airways A330-200. The context set up here was that we are going on a work trip to Europe, which was total gibberish anyways. We arrived at the Mumbai airport Terminal 2, and headed up…

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Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Kolkata

by Ajay 2 Comments

a hotel room with a bed and chairs

A long weekend is an excuse to get out of town, and October 2-6 this year was one of those with a lot of holidays. With a lot of Bengali friends, I’ve heard great things about Kolkata during the Durga Puja season, and it was one of the things on my to do list. So, this year, it was a good time to make it happen. When I started to look for hotels, I eventually narrowed it down to the ITC Sonar or the Hyatt Regency, which are two hotels I’ve been wanting to go to for a while. Luckily for me, I spotted a very good deal at the Hyatt Regency Kolkata during the Monsoon Flash sale they held…

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Hotel Review: Grand Hyatt, Mumbai

by Ajay Leave A Comment

I’ve been spending a lot of time away from home recently, and I just wanted to spend some downtime over the a weekend. However, that was not going to be possible if I decided to stay home because something or the other would have been tugging for my attention. Owing to this, I decided to spend a weekend in the hotels, and I spent one night at the Grand Hyatt Mumbai, and another at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai. While I’d been to the Grand Hyatt Mumbai a lot of times, I’d never stayed there. So, after a long day at work, I headed straight to the hotel and arrived there about 6 PM. I landed up at the check-in desk…

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Reviewing the SpiceJet Hot Breakfast

by Ajay 1 Comment

a food in a tray

SpiceJet is working on a reinvention all this year, and amongst the other things they are working on, is the food they serve on the flights. Being a no-frills airline, they only offer Buy-on-board meals, but the public verdict about the food was not great earlier. Taking that feedback on board, they reworked the menu, and tied up with the TajSats for catering on board. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be on a SpiceJet flight for my travel from Mumbai to Kolkata, and while I can do without a meal on a shorter flight, since this is a 2.5 hour long flight, and they operate from the bus gates in Mumbai where there is no provision for lounges, I…

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Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Mumbai

by Ajay 2 Comments

a view of a city from a window

Like I mentioned in this post, I really needed to get out of my house and get some downtime over the last weekend. So, I decided to check out the Hyatt Regency and the Grand Hyatt Mumbai over the weekend. Hyatt Regency is an airport hotel, while the Grand Hyatt is the suburban hotel in Mumbai. While I have been to the Grand Hyatt a few times to attend events or grab a bite, it was the first time I was going to be over at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai. I arrived at the hotel and went to the lobby check-in desk, where the hotel had a room ready for me. I was informed that I was booked in the…

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Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Pune

by Ajay 2 Comments

a building with a sign in the background

After a nice stay at Hyatt Pune, I decided to hop across to Hyatt Regency Pune, the older and bigger brother in the Hyatt family in Pune, which is 1 kilometer away across the road for the second day of my Pune stay. As a Hyatt Diamond, they offer free airport transfers, and I asked them if they could replace it with a ride from Hyatt Pune. They were okay with it and sent a car along at the appointed time. I pulled into Hyatt Regency Pune, and it was every bit a five star hotel, in terms of size and facilities. However, in the end, it turned out that they went as much as the distance they had to…

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Hotel Review: Hyatt Pune

by Ajay 2 Comments

a pool in a garden

A few weeks ago, Hyatt launched a Monsoon promotion in India, where they offered a flat 50% off on room rates. This forced me to do some advance planning for some of my future travel plans, and I gladly gave them away to Hyatt since it gave me an opportunity to try out properties at significantly less than publicly available prices. One of the places I headed up to was Pune, for some quick rest & recuperation and meeting my brother who currently lives in Pune. Me and my fiancée got into Pune about mid-day from Mumbai, and we checked into the hotel straight away, after trying out Uber for the first time in Pune. Hyatt Hotels is a full…

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