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Citibank is offering an opportunity to earn 2x PremierMiles for all spends on the PremierMiles credit card (both Visa and MC options). Unlike their most recent 50% bonus offer (now expired) , this current offer is only an opportunity - the top 5000 registered spenders during the promotion period of 1 November 2013 to 31 January 2014, will earn 2x PremierMiles on all their PM credit card spends, subject to a maximum of 50k miles per card. Here's the link to the signup page , registration being mandatory in order to qualify for this offer. Also remember, that registration can be done till 31 December 2013, and I suppose as long as you are registered, all spends from 1 November will qualify. There appear to be no separate T&Cs, so here's what I presume are the applicable T&Cs. This festive season, Citibank brings an opportunity for PremierMiles cardmembers to double their miles. Opt into our program and you can be registered for twice the number of miles for all your spe...

Continuing from my earlier post on reviewing two travel tools , I reviewed MyGola.com as I had promised earlier. First impressions The overall look and feel is a lot more contemporary, which I really like. However, I do resent the excessive number of clicks needed. I also had the expectation - maybe due to the contemporary look - that the tool would be more intuitive, which wasn't the case. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, and maybe I was expecting too much. Having said that, there are certainly some unique and positive features about this tool. Walkthrough of the tool itself While the website does provide set plans that one could follow, I was more interested in the customisation approach, which also made it comparable with MustSeeIndia.com, which I'd reviewed earlier .  As I mentioned before, there are options for predetermined itineraries, as well as customised ones. Both can be set based on the number of days planned for the trip. The preset itineraries have further themed...

A month back, I wrote about the free Platinum status on sign up , to Accor's Le Club program. I've received mixed responses on its efficacy. However, Accor has updated it for this month (and I fear that due to this late post, this may not be valid for much longer). Nonetheless, here's the link to the October offer for an identical free Platinum status on sign up. As I've posted on the link to the September offer, there's a reasonable set of benefits for Platinum status, including: Up to 40 points per spend of € 10 (compared to 20 points for Classic members, 30 for Silver and 35 for Gold) Early and exclusive access to Accor promotions and sales Complimentary room upgrade to the next category of room Late check out till 4 pm Welcome gift / Beauty or Spa treatment at specific properties You can read about all the  benefits here . Do remember: this is only for new sign-ups (which you may want to do for a variety of reasons) you cannot use an email ID that's associa...

I recently wrote about reviewing two travel tools . Here's the first of them, on MustSeeIndia., which has been operational for a few years now, and so should be fairly well stabilised. First impressions Overall, the interfacing is simple. What you see is what you get, by and large. It starts off with the homepage where you indicate your preferred location(s), duration of stay, and start date. You can customise your options across 4 sections - Accommodation, Transportation, Sightseeing, Inclusions - and conclude with the Itinerary. Because I recently spent some limited time in Jaipur, I decided to use that as the testing ground for this review. I selected a 4 night stay, starting 23 December 2013. Making your choices The first step is to select the accommodation. The website provides a reasonable set of hotel choices, with the indicated prices being pegged to the cheapest hotel. Prices are displayed for the entire stay, and not on a per-night basis. As you click through and customis...

I've been a bit tied up over the last week and more, with a lot of unexpected things coming up on the work front. Nonetheless, I've also been doing some background research for this blog, and preliminary thoughts indicate that things might well be looking up for the Indian traveler, as well as overseas travelers coming to India. Essentially, I've found a couple of portals that offer travel tools. Now, there isn't much new to travel knowledge - there are tons of resources online, and a combined research of Wikitravel, Tripadvisor and a few guides such as Lonely Planet will help the typical traveler with enough information to navigate a new city. However, there are always tricky local aspects need to be navigated through. MyGola.com is a site that specialises in providing customised itineraries for travelers, based on their interests. Their promise is for a user to customise a trip in 15 minutes, and book most of it online through their interface. I've been talking t...

The holiday season is upon us, and it is that time of the year (actually, a bit late this time around) that I plan for my annual vacation in December. Seeing as it is, what with greater affordability (all those real estate deals?), loads of people are booking holidays - some of them rather expensive ones - and I've had a small pile of requests for advice on where to go this year. My answer is, that well, there's a ton of places one could head to. That's the plain truth. Yes, its true that airfares for December can be quite high, and so can be hotel rates. I tell friends (the ones that ask for advice!) to be careful about bookings that straddle Christmas Eve and/or New Year's Eve. Hotels usually have their own "do" going on those dates, and if you're staying at a hotel, particularly in the Far East, it is almost the norm to be automatically charged a reasonably hefty fee for that event - whether or not you want to attend. But those are problems to address w...

In a little over a month, I've stayed at three of ITC's properties from their Luxury Collection of Hotels. The first was a the ITC Windsor in Bengaluru, where I received red-carpet, yet upmarket, treatment . The next, a few weeks back, was at the ITC Grand Central in Mumbai, where I had a mixed experience (rather, a good experience marred by this particular occurrence ). So when I had the opportunity to stay at the ITC Rajputana in Jaipur, I wasn't sure of what to expect. I reached Jaipur on a Sunday evening, on a connecting flight via AMD. After a rather eventful airport experience (modern, yet tiny airport, and my checked-in bag was the last on the baggage carousel!), I was picked up by the hotel taxi. The driver was extremely friendly and helpful, and it was very hard to disengage from conversation with him - the upshot of it being, I had my Jaipur 101 within 10 minutes! Because I was in Jaipur on work and didn't have time to sight-see, the friendly driver actually t...