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Hilton HHonors has announced changes to categories for some of its hotels, which will take effect 12 October 2016. The good news is that this doesn't affect any of their India hotels. That said, some of their changes are interesting. Let's take a look. First, here is Hilton's page with all the changes - new hotels added, category increases and category reductions. 70 new hotels have been added, with 51 of those in the USA. 33 hotels see a category reduction, 26 of which are in Turkey. The latter is reflective of the prevailing environment in that country. 21 hotels see a category increase, 15 of which are in the USA. The last time Hilton announced changes was in July this year .  Hilton Mumbai With over 4500 properties in its portfolio, the changes in categories (to a total of 54 hotels) is just over 1% of the total number of hotels, which isn't significant on the whole. What's key is Hilton HHonors' award chart showing points required for an award night for va

SPG has announced its latest list of Hot Escapes hotels, which are basically a selection of hotels hand-picked by SPG and made available at a reasonable to significant discount. Hot Escapes hotels are usually available at a discount of at least 15-20%, and going all the way up to 30-35% (and some times as high as 40%), but need to be booked by the Saturday. The deals are usually open for stays up to 6 weeks from the date they are announced. This week’s Hot Escapes list has 33 hotels , with a country-wise list here . This time there are: 7 hotels in  North America , 3 hotels in  Caribbean and Central America , No hotels in South America, 4 hotels in  Europe , No hotels in  Africa , 1 hotel in the  Middle East ,  18 hotels in  Asia , and No hotels in  Australia and Oceania . This is a massive reduction from over 250 hotels last week.There are no hotels from India this time around. SPG Hot Escapes are published every Wednesday (evening, India time), and are available to be booked by 10.3

According to Skift , in a recently released survey conducted by MasterCard, Bangkok took away top honours as the number one city in the world in terms of Overnight International visitors. Now before we proceed, what I guess "overnight" means in this context is that the said visitors have spent at least one night in the city, as opposed to transit folks or day-trippers. Given that Bangkok is involved, we thought this clarification was needed!!! Pic courtesy:  http://www.thousandwonders.net/Bangkok Global Destination Cities Index (GDCI) is a ranking that's been initiated by the financial giants Mastercard, which explained in a nutshell, is a bid to track and understand which cities globally attracting traffic. They've broken down the results into a lot of varying sub metrics based on major geographical sub groups such as North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific (APAC), but we've stuck just to the macro numbers and tried to unde

In March this year, Jet Airways moved its European hub (as part of its hub-and-spoke model) from Brussels to Amsterdam, while concurrently launching services to Amsterdam . Jet Airways has also operated daily flights on the Mumbai-Paris route for more than two years now. All of these give Jet Airways access to code-shares out of Amsterdam and Paris. So the latest news is that Jet Airways will enhance its cooperation with Delta Air Lines and joint venture partner Air France-KLM. Here's more on this development. According to this release put out by Delta earlier today, and this press item , Jet Airways' existing code-share arrangement is likely to be replaced by a joint venture arrangement (similar to what Delta currently has in place with Air France-KLM). That means greater sharing of routes, seats, costs and revenues, though I'm not sure of the mechanics as yet. FWIW, Air France and KLM are partner airlines of Jet Airways, while Delta is not. Jet's press release page d

IHG is currently offering a limited-time flash sale for a 100% bonus on all IHG Rewards Club points purchased, valid till 30 September 2016. Though I'd normally not recommend buying points or miles speculatively, this could be a great opportunity to top up your IHG points balance, particularly if you're just not too many points short of a targeted redemption. Here's a quick look. The promotion offers a 100% on all points purchased, as long as it is in multiples of 1000 points. Bonuses as high as 100% don't come too often - though they did offer it a few months back . Otherwise, the highest I've seen is an 80% bonus . IHG allows you to buy up to 60,000 points a year, starting at $13.50 (or about Rs 900) per 1000 points. At the highest purchase level of 60,000 points, the price is $11.50 (~Rs 765) per 1000 points, or Rs 0.38 per point including the bonus. We at MAEM value IHG Rewards Club points at Rs 0.26 apiece, but as explained in this earlier post , there are prop

We at MAEM don't track Vistara as much as we probably ought to, mainly because we have limited access to and need for the airline - they don't fly to where we're primarily based (which is MAA). That said, the program interests us enough to write about it, and many of you are members of Club Vistara, Air Vistara's frequent flyer program. So we thought we'd write about several changes to this program, that were announced at a media event earlier today. New Platinum tier, and easier tier upgrades now There is now a new tier - Platinum - making it a total of four tiers (base, silver, gold and platinum). Moving from Gold to Platinum will require 35,000 points or 40 flights. In addition, Club Vistara has revised their points requirements to upgrade to the next tier. Here's the revised requirements for moving up levels within the program. Base to Silver:        15,000 points   (used to be 25,000) or    20 flights Silver to Gold:        25,000 points   (used to be 50,00

Jet Privilege, the mileage program of Jet Airways, already has several tie ups with partners, that enable members to earn JP miles on purchases or other transactions with them. These include partner airlines, hotels, retail chains, travel companies, car rentals, and such. And the latest addition to this is Jet Privilege's shopping portal, run in partnership with Flipkart. You can now earn JP miles for your purchases with Flipkart, going up to 16 JP miles per Rs 100 spent on such purchases. Here's how you can earn those extra miles, and a pro-tip. The shopping portal is located here . As is obvious, the search and shopping engine is run by Flipkart. (As an aside, the way this works is that Jet Privilege sells its miles to Flipkart, which the latter then uses as a bonus when marketing its products, only on this particular channel . That's to say, normal shopping on Flipkart won't earn you these miles.) Earning JP miles You won't earn 16 JP miles per Rs 100 spent on al

The long-drawn-out story of Marriott's acquisition of Starwood has finally been given the go-ahead. And so, today - 23 September 2016 - marks the integration of loyalty programs of the two hotel chains. Here's what you need to know about the combination, and how it affects you. The back-story There's a lot, but here's a snapshot of what led to today: In November 2016, Marriott announced it was going to acquire Starwood . Then Anbang (a Chinese insurance group) came into the picture .  Marriott and Anbang went through a bidding war . Anbang finally pulled out of the race, leaving Marriott to acquire Starwood . Marriott and Starwood shareholders finally approved the merger in April 2016 . Soon after, Marriott made some changes to its Marriott Rewards (MR) program, to retain loyalty and, to a large extent, also try and emulate SPG. And today, the two programs have become inter-operable. What does that mean? Read on... The loyalty programs Marriott already operates two d

SPG has announced its latest list of Hot Escapes hotels, which are basically a selection of hotels hand-picked by SPG and made available at a reasonable to significant discount. Hot Escapes hotels are usually available at a discount of at least 15-20%, and going all the way up to 30-35% (and some times as high as 40%), but need to be booked by the Saturday. The deals are usually open for stays up to 6 weeks from the date they are announced. This week’s Hot Escapes list has 288 hotels , with a country-wise list here . This time there are: 160 hotels in  North America , 12 hotels in  Caribbean and Central America , 7 hotels in South America, 37 hotels in  Europe , 10 hotels in  Africa , 6 hotels in the  Middle East ,  52 hotels in  Asia , and 2 hotels in  Australia and Oceania . There are no hotels from India this time around. Last week, SPG had erroneously announced that 1130 hotels (or almost 95% of hotels under the SPG umbrella) were under Hot Escapes promotions, which was an error! N

The civil aviation regulator in India - the DGCA - has issued regulations that make taking pictures on board aircraft pretty much impossible in most cases. And this applies to both passengers and crew, though differently. Call me cynical, but I get the feeling that the DGCA is overreacting, though airline crew and passengers aren't entirely blameless in the matter. Nonetheless, here's a deep-dive into the latest regulations on this front. Titled " Cockpit Visit on Ground ", the circular dated a month ago really has very limited coverage of on-ground matters. Instead, here's what the it states: Many instances have come to the notice wherein cockpit crew has indulged in photography in the cockpit. In few instances, both pilots were away from the aircraft controls when the photographs were taken. On few occasion crew have also allowed people to enter cockpit and take photographs even though their entry was not covered under AIC 3 of 1997. Taking photography during fl

I spent a night at the Crowne Plaza Greater Noida, in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India last week. I've reviewed this hotel before , so I'm not going to write about it again. But I was upgraded to a suite (apartment room, as they call it), and I'm disappointed. However, the visit was useful to some extent, and I learned some new stuff. Here's more. The reason I'm disappointed I've made it clear earlier, that I'm a big fan of suites...well, who isn't? My only problem with suites is that the larger space results in me spreading my stuff around over a broader area. That means packing up is that much more difficult. Aside of that, I'm truly grateful for the extra space, particularly when traveling with family or a larger group. The real reason I'm disappointed this time round is, believe it or not, I was hoping to review a standard room. I realise that most folks don't book or get upgraded to the suites at hotels, which is why a review o

The budget airline market can be brutally competitive. And nowhere more so than India, where the aviation market is one of the cheapest globally. So it comes as no surprise that Indigo - which is normally the leader in most things marketing and innovation in the Indian aviation space - had to follow SpiceJet's Spice Club , by offering relatively huge benefits for a pretty small price. Here's more on the yet-unnamed offering. The deal works quite simply, like this: You pay Rs 99, and instantly get vouchers worth Rs 899. These vouchers are: 2x Rs 350 "booking" vouchers, redeemable against your next booking(s), and 1x Rs 100 "service" voucher and 1x Rs 99 "service" voucher, for use against other offerings. However, and as always, there are specific usage terms. the vouchers are valid for 6 months only the booking vouchers can be used only against base fare the service vouchers can be used to purchase specific services (meals, seat selection, pre-paid

I was on a recent work trip to Bucharest, Romania in end-July. I flew Lufthansa business class (including intra-Europe business class). I've reviewed those products here and here , so I won't be writing about them again. I stayed at a serviced apartment sort of place, booked by my hosts, and hence there's no review. I was able to get a little bit of time off on two of the 3 days that I was there. I usually take a long(ish) walk in order to (a) see and get a feel of the place a little bit, and (b) tire myself out so I get a good night's sleep. This trip was no different. The first day was actually a half-day, the afternoon I landed. This post has some (what I think are) awesome sights from that evening. The second post in this series (called Day 2) has pictures from what was was actually Day 3 of my stay (I had the entire day to myself). But that'll come later. Here goes day 1. Warning: You'll probably see a beer (or 4) here among the pictures. That's just