Stay In A 5 Star Hotel For A Budget Motel Price!

I’m writing this from a JW Marriott hotel room. This is a 5 star property. It’s one of the most expensive hotels in town, as JW Marriott properties often are. There are multiple restaurants that are absolutely phenomenal, along with the best nightclub in the city which attracts top DJs from all over the country. It’s everything that you would expect from one of the very best 5-star hotels in a city of over 8 million people in size.

Naturally, I didn’t pay cash: I paid with Marriott Rewards points. And I got those points for free, by signing up for the Marriott Rewards credit card. In points terms, this cost me about the same as a Fairfield Inn in a distant California suburb. Let me repeat this for emphasis: I paid basically the same as I would pay for a budget motel in the US. I’ll get to how I managed this in a minute. But this is definitely not the typical Seat 31B experience. Just check out these pictures, they speak for themselves:

queen bed, JW Marriott

A comfy queen size bed. I got two, so can try them both.

me in the mirror

Obligatory dorky tablet selfie in the spotless full sized hallway mirror

bathroom, jw marriott pune

Walk-in shower, tub, and toilet in a room of its own

So, now that we have established that I am actually, really, comfortably ensconced in a five star hotel (which is totally unlike the normal Seat 31B experience), and you know there’s no way I’d ever pay full price, I’ll tell you the secret. I’m in Pune, India, a delightful university city on a pleasant plateau located a few hours inland from Mumbai. This property is normally 10,000 points per night (still a fantastic value), but it’s currently on a PointSavers special for 7,500 Marriott Rewards points per night. Or you can pay cash, the equivalent of about $150 per night. It’s a phenomenal value.

I also spent 3 nights in the excellent (and more centrally located) Courtyard by Marriott in central Pune. This is also an amazing value, a Category 1 property also costing only 7,500 points per night. It’s not what you’d expect from a Courtyard property in the US. In Asia, Courtyard properties are solid 4 star hotels. I was overall very pleased with this property, although the value isn’t quite as good redeeming for points because paid rates are considerably less than the JW Marriott. For paid stays, at rates of about $80 per night, the Courtyard is an incredible value.

One other advantage of redeeming points here? When you redeem your Marriott points in India, you don’t pay taxes. Taxes are charged on the actual room rate, so on a $0 room rate, you won’t pay a cent. Imagine how you’d feel in one of the best rooms in town, in a tropical city full of universities and temples, enjoying this spectacular sunset and knowing that you could have had the equivalent of a suburban Motel 6 for the same price.

sunset photo, pune, india

Phenomenal sunset view with temple in the distance

Emirates (Sort Of) Honors Low India Fares

On Tuesday night, there was an incredible deal to India on Emirates. How incredible? $450 roundtrip from Los Angeles to Mumbai. There were even better deals, including $258 roundtrip from Los Angeles to Hyderabad. Deals were available from most North American cities served by Emirates. However, they could only be booked on Vayama, who has a fairly unusual procedure for issuing tickets.This ultimately torpedoed my trip, along with everyone else who booked these low fares.

Last night, I received email from Vayama backing out of the deal:

Dear Customer,

 

We recently received your online booking request.  Quality control has determined that your booking could not be processed at the fare that was originally quoted.  Unfortunately, the airline was unable to accept the fare that was quoted earlier and as a result, the fare is increased now. This was an issue from Emirates Airline due to  fuel surcharge was not updated on the ticket price. Hence we would suggest you to either cancel this reservation or accept the below fare. We are doing this to avoid any kind of problem at the airport.

 

The total fare now  is $992.74 USD

 

please respond to the email or call us on 1.877.628.6452 at the earliest convenience if you agree to pay the new fare, so that we will go ahead and issue your ticket.  If you have any questions please feel free to respond to this email and we will get back to you generally within 24 hours.

 

***Please note: fares are not guaranteed until the final processing is complete***

 

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,

 

Customer Care Team

What was the root cause here? You have to have both a reservation and a ticket number in order for the contract to be complete. Vayama, for whatever reason, makes a reservation immediately upon booking, but manually processes ticketing. They likely do this to avoid fraudulent credit card charges. If an airline decides that a low fare was a mistake, it’s very easy for them to back out of the deal in this scenario. No ticket was actually issued at the time of purchase, hence there was no Contract of Carriage. So, Emirates didn’t legally have to honor the deal–and they didn’t. I will have to visit India another time.

UPDATE: I just received a phone call from Vayama indicating that Emirates will honor the fare after all. However, the ticket that was issued was a very heavily restricted ticket which is the same category issued for frequent flier tickets. This means that it likely will not earn mileage with Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. However, at a 50% discount from the usual lowest fare, it’s still a very good deal to visit India.