I write this post from the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2 lounge, where I am finally comfortable after a long few days of feeling like kicking myself in the backside. You will perhaps read it after a few hours when I will be airborne. You see, I was trying to be loyal to the Royal airline (i.e., the British Airways), and for this, I need to get a visa every now and then, even to transit through the UK to go to a Schengen country. God help me with why do I need a visa for transit to Schengen countries, when I don’t need one to travel to the USA, Australia and some other places via the UK. The visa costs…
Miscellaneous
Tag Archives for Miscellaneous.
Happy birthday to us! Let us reward you!
Oy! I am extremely apologetic I forgot my own blog’s birthday from last week! We turned 3 last Monday, and I just wanted to thank all of you for your hard work in earning your miles and travel feathers in India, and making us a part of your journey along. The journey, is the reward! Like I’ve said before, I started this blog to put out my travel experiences with miles and points, with a focus on the Indian miles and points space. And I think the timing was about right. When I popped up on the blogosphere in 2011, there were a lot of travel blogs about India, but nothing that focussed on travel loyalty, aspirational travel and how…
You guys make it worth it!
I’ve been writing this blog roughly for about 3 years, and when I started writing this blog, it was because of my own concern that there was no one place to get access to miles & points resources from an Indian perspective. Yes, there is Flyertalk but you need your geek quotient to be high to be around there and get a hang of everything happening there. Its been a long journey, and at the right time I guess, because over the past 3 years I’ve seen points and miles taking mainstay in India with various airlines rejigging their travel programs to make it more accepted with the common folk, and the flurry of the Jet Airways, Air India and…
Passport Control changes for travel to/fro India since March 2014
The Bureau of Immigration, Government of India made some changes to the requirements for travelling to and from India for Indian as well as Foreign passengers from India. Considering there was no widespread education campaign about this, earlier this month, I still filled up this form because British Airways gave me one, and at the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2 they still collected the customs counterfoil of this Disembarkation form from me. This is the statement from the Bureau of Immigration: It has been decided to do away with the filling of Departure (Embarkation) Card by Foreigners and Arrival (Disembarkation) Card by Indians w.e.f. March 1, 2014. Indian nationals are not required to fill in Disembarkation (Arrival) Card w.e.f. March 1,…
My chat with DeltaPoints
Recently, DeltaPoints interviewed me for his Fireside Chat series. Here is an excerpt on Hotels in India: India has some great hotel chains of its own, such as the Taj and the Oberoi groups, which went on to build hotels across the world after building luxury properties around India. Also, Aman is owned by an Indian company at the moment. The chains have realized that they need to step up their presence in India, and are now starting to work on expanding presence here for the past few years. I see announcements of 30 or 50 new properties by next 3 years by Starwood, Hilton and others in India every now and then. So, over a period of time chains…
We are back online, and thank god for plastic money
I know I’ve been missing in action the past ten days or so. A few things have been happening and I am fully geared up to make it up to you! First and foremost, I had a little burglary in my home a few days back. Yes, right in my home, not on the road, not in a different city. The only things gone were my wallet, my BlackBerry (a fairly new one!) and a portable hard drive. I spent almost a full day with the cops, who did not do much but give me a missing items report to help me get a new SIM card. So, it took a few days of calling the banks to get myself…
Blogging really is a thankless job!
No, its not my job actually. I have a full time position like I’ve talked about before, and I write this blog for the love of miles & points, and to help readers in a relatively new market to the game, like India, realise the potential of travel with loyalty benefits, and tips and tricks of the game. Now, from time to time I have giveaways when an arrangement is made with various companies, and I really want all of you to have fun out there with these promos. I’ve had one reader in the past who did not receive something I promised, and I am trying to source the same thing again to be able to send it to…
Lounge Bites: July 25, 2013
Some quick updates from the world of travel around me: Neil Mills is leaving Spicejet, and that makes him the second airline CEO to go away from an Indian airline in 3 months after Nikos Kardassis moved out from Jet Airways. Media seems to be linking this to the potential funding they will receive, perhaps from Kuwait Airways. Have you ever had to cancel someone else’s First Class reservations to get your own client on the plane? These travel agents used to cancel/modify reservations for other passengers and get their own passengers on their way. They’ve now been arrested. If you miss your connection, it may now be the airline’s problem. Jet Airways learnt the hard way. Not travel related,…
Ever been locked out right after your spa treatment?
Like I mentioned yesterday, I had a rigorous ten days of work travel and I just got back into Mumbai on Saturday. On Sunday, I was booked to drive away a few hours from Mumbai and stay at a property which is a 6 month old addition to a leading brand of hotels across the world. This one is a Retreat and a Spa, and one of their largest properties I’d like to believe. Except, as a leisure property, it has amazed and disappointed me so far. I’m not going to name this one just yet, but a little bit of Google skills should help you find out if you’d be very curious. Google for “320 acres retreat spa” and…
And we’re back!
I know I’ve conveniently been on mute mode for the past one week or so. Like I’d last posted, the BoardingArea servers were undergoing upgrade for a couple of days. However, this was also the time when I had to quickly pack my bags and be away on a work schedule in Dubai and Hong Kong. And you know what, the whole airfare pricing paradigm, which charges you way more for one-way tickets internationally made sure I had to fly back to Mumbai via Dubai as well. I was not flexible in my timings in Dubai, otherwise I’d have loved to have transited at Mumbai/Delhi and would have done BOM-DXB-BOM/DEL-HKG-BOM. Anyhow, after slogging in the back of the bus mostly,…
Gone fishing!
Not! BoardingArea, my blog network and host, is going t be down for scheduled maintenance today (10 PM Mountain Time on Thursday, 20 June 2013) and come back up within the next 36 hours or so. We’re doing some exciting changes at the back-end, and due to this, I won’t be able to post anything for you for this timeframe, or you to be able to comment on the blog. If there is something you want to know, you could tweet me at @livefromalounge, or mail me at aj@livefromalounge.com. In the meanwhile, I am very excited to meet some of you in July, so if you’re in Mumbai or will be in Mumbai, do sign-up for the meetup here. I’ll…
