Last Week At The Lounge: September 8, 2018

It’s Saturday again! I can’t believe that it has been one week since our first Mileage Mentor MasterClass, and here we are, organizing our second one today. Ajay was out last week attending the IATA Aviation Summit in Delhi and ended up flying on Vistara’s retrojet on his way back to Mumbai. You should be hearing from him soon about his experience. Till then, here’s our weekly roundup to get you all caught up.

Our Top Stories

Since the moment we started hearing whispers about Qatar Airways launching an airline in India, we’ve kept a close eye on their moves. Now it seems that Qatar Airways may not go ahead with this idea. The CEO H.E. Ahmed Al-Baker made it clear that if the government does not clear a couple of key regulatory hurdles, the company will take their money elsewhere.

I’ve been recently looking for a new card to add to my wallet for day to day spends. The verdict? The new Everyday Spend American Express Gold card fits my requirements. You earn 10X points on things like Ola Rides and Flipkart purchases! And the low-income prerequisite makes this a great first credit card for many.

Also, our roundup of ongoing hotel promotions for September 2018 is live. Make sure to check it out before you book your next hotel stay. Who knows, you might find a great promotion or deal you did not know of before.

News and Views

We kicked off this year’s event season with our Mileage Mentor MasterClass and the Points & Pints community meetup in Mumbai. All of us at LiveFromALounge had an amazing time meeting you guys and hearing about your travel experiences. Delhi and Bengaluru folks, we are coming to meet you soon!

Looks like the Indian Government is smitten by the GST refund system that countries such as Singapore offer foreign tourists at their airports. Hyderabad airport is going to be the testbed for our refund system. You may see this platform being implemented across the country soon.

Cards and Rewards

This week three major hotel loyalty programs came out with their promotions to entice you to give them your business. World of Hyatt launched a tier based bonus program and Hilton Honors renewed their double points promotion. Not just that, if you stay at a Hilton luxury hotel or resort, you get 3X the points. IHG, on the other hand, introduced their popular accelerate promotion in a new avatar.

Deals with Appeal

Want to travel to Italy but not a big fan of layovers? Air Italy is currently offering discounted fares on their flights to Milan from Delhi and Mumbai. Back home our airlines were trying to outdo each other on how many seats they could sell through a sale. IndiGo offered a million seats while Jet Airways put up 2.5 million seats.

Mileage Mentor MasterClass Tickets

Happy reading and hope you have a great week ahead!