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Hello from Paris, where my business-and-vacation trip is coming to a close. Vinay is in KUL on work, an Sam has been largely incommunicado. And I've had a fabulous week in Paris, the weather being fantastic (coming here from a rather long Indian summer)!!! Meanwhile, here's a round up of the week that was - a summary of posts on this blog as also other things travel, aviation, points and miles that we found interesting.Hope you had a great week, and here's wishing you the very best in the next one! Paris trip reports Here are the reports I've published so far, from my Paris visit. Bonjour Paris: Introduction and summary of posts Review: Chennai to Colombo on Sri Lankan A320 regional business class Review: Serendib Lounge, Colombo airport Review: Colombo to Paris on Sri Lankan A330-200 international business class Review: Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile Review: Le Meridien Etoile, Paris Airline news and offers Here's how your travel to, from or via Mumbai could be affect...

Citibank UAE's Premier Miles card is currently offering a 20% bonus on all transfers to Etihad Airways Guest Miles Program. Is this a good offer? Let's find out. Citibank's PremierMiles card is one product that is available in many countries, with locally variant terms, earnings, etc. I don't know of many banks that have such a common product available in multiple countries. I happen to be a customer of their UAE product. The list of airlines and hotels you can transfer your points to, differs from country to country. But by and large they are the same for India and UAE (except of course, that in India, Citibank and Jet Airways don't really see eye-to-eye much). Anyway, Citibank is currently offering a bonus of 20% on all miles transferred to Etihad Airways between 1 and 31 October 2016. This the same as the promotion that Etihad is currently running , with multiple transfer partners. It's weird that Citi has sent me this offer, when more than half the time peri...

I've been a little tied up with work - both official and personal - which his probably why you haven't seen much action on the blog recently. However, there's some useful information that's out today, that I thought might interest our readers. Etihad Airways Partners - the collection of airlines that Etihad owns or assists with operations to some degree or other - announced an alignment of elite benefits across airlines. Here's a delve into this update. First, here's the link to Etihad's announcement . What this means is that if you're a Silver, Gold or Platinum member with any of the Etihad Airways Partner Airlines, you can get consistent benefits when traveling with any of the airlines in that alliance (there are some exceptions, which we'll come to shortly). Here's the re-aligned set of benefits. As far as lounge access goes, Gold and Platinum members are entitled to one guest except in Jet Airways lounges . oneworld and SkyTeam Lounges exclu...

I received this peculiar offer from Etihad in my mail a couple of days back, and I thought it was worth sharing, even if the target audience for this one could be rather limited (or am I out of touch with reality?). The offer is for either 80,000 or 130,000 Etihad Guest miles, if you sign up for one of two eligible subscriptions to The World's Finest Clubs. Here's more about this rather unusual offer... For starters, I wasn't even aware of something called  The World's Finest Clubs  - not surprising, considering they commend themselves for having a  1,000+ members . However, they do boast of having over 200 clubs across 50 countries, and I've actually been to one of them - Exo, Mumbai ! It looks like they have now tied up with Etihad, to access Etihad's clientele (read Etihad Guest members' list!), to see if they can up their membership by a bit. There are 3 packages on offer, but only the Premium Private and Premium Partners memberships (Euro 159 and Euro 2...

Brussels Airlines (SN) will commence direct flights from Brussels to Mumbai, filling in the gap created when Jet Airways chose to replace Brussels with Amsterdam  as its European hub for its hub-and-spoke operations. According to this piece from the Aviation Tribune , SN is expected to commence operations in March 2017, though seats are currently not up for sale on SN’s website, indicating that this plan is probably in very early stages. Here’s a look at Brussels Airlines, and what to expect over the next few months in the specific context of the proposed Mumbai operations. In March 2016, Jet Airways ceased services from Delhi and Mumbai to Brussels, choosing Amsterdam as its European hub instead. The shame was that in the last few days before the Brussels operations could end, the Brussels bombings (including one at the airport itself) meant that Jet couldn’t give Brussels a proper goodbye, from where it had operated for nearly a decade, including several flights from other ...

Etihad is now offering a promotion to convert loyalty rewards points from its partners' programs, into Etihad Guest miles, at a 25%  bonus. This is similar to a promotion they ran in the end of 2015 . Offering such bonuses has become a rather consistent theme with the JEtihad family. Jet Airways has run  two   such  promotions already this year, and  one last year  just before Etihad's promotion then. This current promotion is available on conversions till 31 July 2016. While in general, the promotion isn't spectacular, there are some useful opportunities here. There are 14 partners from whose programs you can convert loyalty rewards / points into Etihad Guest miles. The problem is really, the conversion rates, as you can see below: I wouldn't give up 10 HHonors points, for instance, for 1 Etihad Guest mile. However, the Citibank conversion rates are quite decent, though they vary by country and individual credit card program. In India, Premier Miles conver...

Miles & Even More reader Pranay recently took his family on a vacation to the Far East. His trip covered Hong Kong (mainly for his young son), Bali (R&R for the family as a whole) and Jakarta (because he was in the area!). He consulted us extensively in preparation for this trip, and we were able to point him to some great uses for his limited points and miles balances (we did not charge anything, because we don’t run a paid service!). Pranay was keen that his success story in terms of using those points and miles be made known to the larger readership base of our blog, because of the amount of value one can generate using points and miles, if worked out well. Over to Pranay... I have always been a miles and points collector, with some history of past redemptions. My family and I planned a vacation earlier this summer, and we wanted to use our points and miles for this. However, we had to maximise on what we had, which wasn’t a great deal as you can see below: 58,000 Etihad Gue...

Following on from our first post a couple of weeks back , here are some of the promotions that are currently open. British Airways Up to 10% discount on tickets purchased using specified Citibank credit cards . Book by 30 June 2016 for travel by 31 December 2016. Etihad Guest Etihad's offering a 10% discount on bookings made using its upgraded iOS mobile app . Hilton HHonors Registrations are now open for  Hilton's summer promotion for 2x points . Hilton's Big World Sale across the Americas, EMEA, China and Asia Pacific offers up to 30% discounts. You can get 2,500 bonus Hilton HHonors points just by asking for it! Instant Hilton HHonors Gold status plus the ability to retain it till March 2018. Hilton HHonors status match up to Diamond is still available. You can buy Hilton HHonors points with up to 100% bonus , till 3 June 2016 (extended to 10 June 2016). Hyatt Hyatt's summer promotion for up to 75,000 points is now on, valid for stays till 30 June 2016. IHG Rew...

On this blog, we often write about promotions across hotels, airlines, credit cards and the occasional cash back offer as well. But once written, barring the occasional mention in our weekly round up, these deals are all but forgotten. Which is of no use to a reader, if there's a potential upside from an ongoing promotion that's out of sight - and hence, out of mind. So we're trying to set up a system to keep updating all promotions that are currently valid. These are essentially reminders, and so we'll try to publish these once a month (or more frequently, if time permits). So here are some of the promotions that are currently open. British Airways Up to 10% discount on tickets purchased using specified Citibank credit cards . Book by 30 June 2016 for travel by 31 December 2016. Etihad Guest You can sample the A380 experience on Etihad on BOM-AUH. Up to 3x bonus miles when you book and fly by 31 May 2016. Hilton HHonors Registrations are now open for  Hilton's s...