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We at Miles and Even More had a rather quiet birthday, to celebrate this blog that's has been around for a little over the year now. And while the blog largely looks the same as it did when it started, I thought I'd do a little to make it a bit more convenient for readers. Here's a quick look at these recent changes. Blog logo I tried a lot of things, but eventually decided to reduce the height of the logo. I did this because I felt it was occupying too much space relative to the rest of the blog. One less click, one less pres of the "down" arrow, one less scroll down of the mouse! Hot articles scroll I introduced a scroll to show the top 10 recent articles. This is located just below the blog logo, and looks something like this. I felt this would help readers access the latest, again, with minimal scroll-downs. Also, clicking on these hyperlinks opens up the post in a new page, so you can continue browsing the current one before you move to the next. Air India-St

I was recently in Delhi, when a friend wanted me to join him in Srinagar for a couple of days. In the last couple of years or so, Srinagar has gained renewed attention as a tourist destination, and possibly the one of the limited places in Kashmir that can be visited without much worry about security issues. As this was a rare opportunity, I gave him the thumbs up, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the folks at home! What made this side-trip even better, was that we stayed at the Lalit Grand Palace - one of the two higher-end hotels in the city (the other being Vivanta by Taj), and that's the hotel that this review covers. The hotel is located between the residences of the chief minister and the governor of Kashmir, so there could be a fair amount of security checks one might need to go through, if either (or both) of those people are in the city. The famed Dal lake is also located right across the main road, when you exit the hotel gates. Upon arrival, and as check-in procedur

It is Madras week, and Madras month all of August. And Uber is continuing its promotions for Chennai/Madras, with an offer of 50% discount on two rides to specific shopping malls. The offer is valid for rides to or from these malls, and is valid 28 to 31 August, 2014 , and requires you to use the code MADRASMALLS when booking your ride. The specific malls (called discount zones) are: Chennai Citi Centre Phoenix Market City Express Avenue Ampa SkyWalk mall, and Forum Vijaya Mall This isn't a spectacular offer, but if you have work in and around these places (and they tend to get crowded over the weekend), then this promo might come in handy. Also, Uber could shut down if they don't comply with the RBI's authentication requirement , so if you want to use them before things go pear-shaped (I hope they don't!), now's probably a good time! Oh, and if you haven't got Uber yet, you can install the app using my promotion code in4j8, or just click here , to get a Rs 300

Here's a pretty decent offer, from Marriott, who are offering a free night's stay certificate on completion of two eligible stays, for new memberships to the MR program. The certificate is usable for a night at any category 1-5 property. You need to have joined the program after 4 August 2014 to be eligible for this offer. If you aren't a member yet, you can sign up here (this isn't an affiliate link). You need to have two eligible paid stays at participating properties - this includes stays at Ritz-Carlton hotels also, but there isn't a list of excluded hotels (yet). Most importantly, you will need to complete your 2 stays by 120 days from the last day of the month in which you enroll , therefore you should strategise when to enroll (or re-enroll, if the free night is worth it), and try and do that as close as possible to the beginning of the month, to maximise your eligibility period. Eg; enrolling on say 30 August will give you time till 29 December, while enro

Air India, which joined Star Alliance recently , is celebrating Air India day this week - on Wednesday, 27 August, to be more exact. Strangely, this isn't a celebration of the founding of Air India. Rather, it is a commemoration of Air India's merger with Indian Airlines, on this date in 2007. Apart from giving away employee (and presumably agents') awards, there's also some sort of "sale" that's going to happen, with AI selling domestic tickets for Rs 100 (excluding taxes and surcharges). Naturally, these are for economy seats! It looks like these tickets will be available for five days, ie Wednesday through Sunday (27-31 August 2014), though it also seems to be with capacity constraints. Nonetheless, this could be a good deal, if you are early enough and are able to bag tickets for a preferred sector. There's no landing / offer page yet, but should be up and running tomorrow. This seems to be where you need to head to , for the offer, which isn't

I love Uber. The concept is fantastic, and what I like the most is the payment channel - the fare is charged directly to your credit card at the end of the ride, and so there's no time wasted in processing the financial part of the transaction, unlike other taxi services. However, it turns out that Uber might need to shut shop in India if they cannot meet the conditions that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has laid out for them to follow. Credit: http://www.vccircle.com/byinvitation/2014/08/25/shutting-down-uber-india-was-unwise Here's why. Transactions using credit cards issued in India have a dual-verification system. If you're transacting in person with your credit card, you're likely to need a chip-and-pin card, so there are two verifications - the credit card itself physically, and the PIN, which is entered on the terminal. Similarly for online transactions (also known as Card Not Present or CNP), the dual verification consists of the card details themselves, and a

I've been off the radar a little bit because of a lot of travel these last couple of weeks. During this time, I've had a couple of stays at the JW Marriott, Bangalore, which I'll write about pretty soon. More importantly, I realise that not many of us have perhaps flows Air Costa. And because I recently had the chance to fly them on a short MAA-BLR segment, I thought I'd put out a quick flight review here. MAA-BLR Air Costa LB 487 | Embraer 190 | 1 hr 00 mins | 167 miles | Economy class Air Costa runs two different aircraft - the Embraer 190 (which is an all-economy configuration), and an Embraer 170 (with 7 premium economy seats, the rest being economy seats). I flew the all-economy aircraft from MAA to BLR. At MAA, they have different check-in counters for the premium economy pax, and the other pax. Given the very few seats they have for premium economy, I thought this was unncessary. Nonetheless, I found it useful because I used the premium economy check-in counter t