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Showing posts from February, 2016

JP partner awards - workarounds and hacks

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In the last of the 4 part review of JP's partner awards, we look at generating the best value for the miles you're redeeming for award tickets on Jet Airways' partner airlines. This is a series in 4 parts, indexed as follows: Announcement and the changes to partner awards requirements Preliminary analysis of the changes Specific changes, good routes under the new chart, etc Workarounds and hacks Why did I write as extensively as I've done on this particular topic of Jet Airways' partner award tickets, especially considering it certainly wasn't the most popular method of spending JP miles? To be honest, the answer is that both Vinay and I were have been able to generate some great value out of our JP miles, with some fantastic redemption opportunities. So it is rather hard on us, and others like us, to see these melt away. For instance, in late 2015, I booked award tickets on MAA-HKG and SGN-MAA. On Jet Airways' own metal, these came up to 37,500 miles each

JP partner awards Part 2 - looking at specific changes, some good routes remain

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Continuing with the analysis of the changes to JP partner redemptions , I'm looking at the specifics of the changes in this post, as also good routes under the new requirements. This is a series in 4 parts, indexed as follows: Announcement and the changes to partner awards requirements Preliminary analysis of the changes Specific changes, good routes under the new chart, etc Workarounds and hacks As I mentioned earlier, the new construct has 13 zones, compared to the earlier 23 zones. Therefore, for ease of reference and to facilitate comparison, I've selected one city in that zone as a fixed point, against which I've compared mileage requirements under the new and old structures. The big picture On the whole, 13 zones represent 169 combinations of zones that could potentially be ticketed (though some of them currently don't have a published mileage requirement). Of these, the award mileage requirements have changed as follows: 12 zone combinations (7%) increased by m

Jet Airways and Etihad global sale - up to 30% off on business class and economy

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As has become the norm right now, further strengthened by Etihad's proposed increase of its stake in Jet Airways from 24% to 49%,  Jet Airways and Etihad are offering a discount of up to 30% on both economy and business class tickets. The offer is valid for bookings up to 29 February 2016 , for travel between 10 March and 10 December 2016 . The discount is available on both business and economy class tickets, booked by 29 February 2016 and for travel between 10 March 2016 and 10 December 2016. Discounts are applicable to both one-way and return flights. Specific to the Jet Airways sale, the discount applies on the following flights: Flights operated by Jet Airways From To *From Amritsar / Bengaluru / Chennai / Delhi / Goa / Hyderabad / Jaipur / Kolkata / Kozhikode / Mumbai / Patna / Thiruvananthapuram To Bahrain / Bangkok / Brussels / Colombo / Dammam / Dhaka / Doha / Etihad Travel Mall / Dubai Bus Station (XNB) / Hong Kong / Jeddah / Kathmandu / Kuwait / London / Muscat / Paris /

Analysis of Jet Privilege partner redemption changes - Part 1

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Earlier today, I wrote what I considered breaking news , about Jet Privilege changing the miles requirements for partner airline award tickets . Partner airlines have been a pretty efficient, though underused , source of award tickets. So when the changes were announced earlier today, I considered (and still do) these changes as representing a devaluation of JP miles, though its effect is not likely to be much in my personal view. Having said that, some of the changes are critical, and so I've put together this rather long post, analysing the changes in detail. This is a series in 4 parts, indexed as follows: Announcement and the changes to partner awards requirements Preliminary analysis of the changes Specific changes, good routes under the new chart, etc Workarounds and hacks Zoning changes Firstly, origin and destination cities have been grouped under 13 different zones, compared to 23 zones that were there before. The previous zoning system was extremely unwieldy to use, consi

Jet Privilege devalues by increasing mileage requirements for partner airline awards

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Virtually everyone seems to be doing it, so Jet Privilege has joined in on the action. Effective 1 April 2016, you will need to redeem more miles for award tickets on Jet Airways partner airlines. Here's the quick dope, with detailed analysis to follow over the weekend. This is a series in 4 parts, indexed as follows: Announcement and the changes to partner awards requirements Preliminary analysis of the changes Specific changes, good routes under the new chart, etc Workarounds and hacks Starting 1 April 2016, Jet Privilege has increased the number of miles required for an award ticket on partner airlines. These new requirements will apply to partner awards that are requested for starting 1 April 2016 . The new charts are here , but I've reproduced the key aspects below: The zone division is as follows: To cut a long story short, partner rewards will get more expensive. As a quick example, I take the case of India to London. Under the current requirements, this needs 31,000 JP

Hotel review: Holiday Inn Aerocity, Delhi International Airport

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These last few weeks, I’ve had more than normal amount of travel, considering my relatively impoverished (in miles and points terms) scenario now. But - and exactly for that reason - any opportunity to earn miles and points, should, in my view, never be thrown away; at least not until after fair consideration!  Anyway, the upshot of my travel is that I may actually qualify to earn bonus points under  IHG’s Accelerate 2016 promotion . And although I wouldn’t be maximising all of my offers, I don’t think I could’ve earned the achievement bonus any easier, given how last-minute my travel can be. Which finally brings me to this post – a stay at the Holiday Inn, Aerocity, Delhi International Airport (the other stay so far was at the  Crowne Plaza, Gurgaon ).  My booking rate with the hotel included airport pickup (which the hotels in Aerocity can be either very generous about or, as happens more frequently, very tight-fisted), and I was whisked off to the hotel in about 5-7 minutes. Probabl