While I was away, airlines start reimbursing

I've been away on some personal work these last few days, and it looks like some of the airlines have been working on promotions and offers during that time. Specifically, I'm talking about BA and SpiceJet. You've probably already read AJ's pieces on Live from a Lounge, here and here. Nonetheless, here's my 2p worth.

BA's offer for all-inclusive visa fares.

British Airways is now offering a visa fee included fare. Rather, the fare will be discounted by the amount of visa fees.

This was being offered earlier only through travel agents, but is now available on ba.com too. In effect, you get a fare waiver to the extent of the cost of the visa. I was hoping this would be more not having to go through visa processing if flying on BA, but I guess I was a lot more optimistic.

The discount is for Rs 8,400, which is the cost of a 6 month visa (tourist, business and some professionals). This is the base category visa, by price. If you're looking at a visa for a longer term or under a different category than tourist, then the discount will be capped at Rs 8,400. You can book online (after you send them the visa documents and get a voucher code that needs to be input when making payment) or over phone. Also bear in mind that this will work only if the minimum fare / spend is Rs 62,000. The offer is valid on oneway and return bookings made in F,A,J,C,D,R,I,W,E,T,Y,B,H,K,M,V and L classes, and on return fares in N and S classes.

Bookings need to be done by 30 June 2014, and travel by 31 December 2014. More details including T&Cs, here.

SpiceJet's on-time guarantee

I recently wrote about which domestic airline to fly in India, and I remarked there that SpiceJet has been lately flaunting its recent on time performance record. They seem to now be putting their money where their mouth is, by offering discount vouchers (for use on future travel), if your flight is late, starting today (6 May 2014).

Here's how it works. You get a voucher depending on how late the flight is - Rs 500 if it is between 60 and 119 minutes, and Rs 1,000 if the delay is 120 minutes or more. Delays are calculated as the time between scheduled departure time and the time of actual door closing for the flight. No vouchers for delays up to 60 minutes, which is a bit of a shame.

You can use this voucher on a future trip, but within 90 days from when the voucher was issued, only against online bookings, and only for the passenger whose received the voucher in the first place. In effect, it is not transferable. Here's more including full T&Cs, which can take some time reading. Given all that's included in the T&Cs, I'm not sure what kind of delays the airline will accept, as being eligible for this guarantee voucher.

I found the offer title to be a bit misleading. There really is no guarantee that your flight will take off on time. Also, I find the compensation to be quite low in relation to the value of lost time. Having said that, the counter argument would be to book yourself with another airline (or have options), if time was really of the essence. In all, this is not a great offer in general, but possibly the best one around at this time, considering no other airline offers absolutely anything of this sort.

SpiceJet (along with Jet Airways, Air India and I think Go Air too) made huge losses last fiscal. SG has also been trying out a lot of short-duration fare sales particularly for flights in the lean season. I also see this as part of a broader exercise to get more fliers over to SpiceJet, to help stabilise their balance sheet a bit.