Over a period of time you learn about the scams in the airline industry and how you get worthless offers for cards, upgrades, etc.
Sometime back Jet Airways splashed every inch of online and offline media announcing a giveaway of 2 million seats for around Rs 2300 ! And their site crashed. Before them it was another airline company and they too had a bad IT infrastructure to support the promotion.
Now I was looking for a ticket for Delhi and saw IndiGo offering a good price and I go to book it and what do I see ! The ticket offered for 3995 is actually being charged 7k something !
So how does a regular user decipher these airline scams ?
It is normal for airlines to charge taxes etc when you purchase a ticket against your miles. Imagine my shock when this happened to me a few months earlier - I wanted to redeem my miles on Jet Airways for a ticket Bombay - Dubai, I was asked to redeem about 25,000 miles and the taxes etc to be paid in cash was about Rs. 18,000 !!! Well I'll be dammed ! I walk into Jet Airways or any other airline I can purchase a return ticket for about Rs 25K and here Jet is asking me to pay 25k in miles PLUS 18k in cash !
Is there any word which can describe an act which is more than 'daylight robbery' or 'pulling wool over your eyes' ?
Then there are hidden gems - you cannot do a web checkin on the low cost airline (or what they call 'codeshare') and claim miles.
Oh yes - all airlines and co-branded credit cards offer free tickets and upgrade vouchers. These pieces of paper are not worth the ink used to print on them so you might as well throw them away on receipt. The upgrade is valid only on full fare economy fares and if you can afford to buy a ticket BOM-DEL on full economy fare then there is no reason for you to travel economy as you should be buying a business / premier seat. The free ticket is only for the base fare and again you have to opt for a full fare! Who can afford to do this especially when cattle class is the same - whether you have paid more or less.
Sometime back Jet Airways splashed every inch of online and offline media announcing a giveaway of 2 million seats for around Rs 2300 ! And their site crashed. Before them it was another airline company and they too had a bad IT infrastructure to support the promotion.
Now I was looking for a ticket for Delhi and saw IndiGo offering a good price and I go to book it and what do I see ! The ticket offered for 3995 is actually being charged 7k something !
So how does a regular user decipher these airline scams ?
It is normal for airlines to charge taxes etc when you purchase a ticket against your miles. Imagine my shock when this happened to me a few months earlier - I wanted to redeem my miles on Jet Airways for a ticket Bombay - Dubai, I was asked to redeem about 25,000 miles and the taxes etc to be paid in cash was about Rs. 18,000 !!! Well I'll be dammed ! I walk into Jet Airways or any other airline I can purchase a return ticket for about Rs 25K and here Jet is asking me to pay 25k in miles PLUS 18k in cash !
Is there any word which can describe an act which is more than 'daylight robbery' or 'pulling wool over your eyes' ?
Then there are hidden gems - you cannot do a web checkin on the low cost airline (or what they call 'codeshare') and claim miles.
Oh yes - all airlines and co-branded credit cards offer free tickets and upgrade vouchers. These pieces of paper are not worth the ink used to print on them so you might as well throw them away on receipt. The upgrade is valid only on full fare economy fares and if you can afford to buy a ticket BOM-DEL on full economy fare then there is no reason for you to travel economy as you should be buying a business / premier seat. The free ticket is only for the base fare and again you have to opt for a full fare! Who can afford to do this especially when cattle class is the same - whether you have paid more or less.
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