According to Mr Edgardo Badiali, Chief Executive Officer, GoAir, “Passengers availing this offer will be able to get best benefits on their holiday-related travel bookings. It is unlikely that such offers will be matched during the peak season. Through this tie-up we also expect a heavy escalation of early bookings for the oncoming holiday season.”

The Yatra Online tie-up is part of a series of ongoing initiatives by GoAir aimed at offering yatra.com best-fare domestic air ticket bookings in the industry and escalates forward yatra.com best-fare domestic air ticket bookings for the summer season. Recently, the airline had completed a similar tie-up with Cleartrip.com wherein GoAir passengers were offered a return ticket at Rs 599/-

First and foremost, getting your airline arrangements taken care of will free your mind to start planning the other details of your trip.  If you book your cheap  flights to India right away, however, you won’t have to worry about annoying details like last-minute fare hikes or being unable to find seats.

Booking your  tickets  to India early will usually get you the most affordable fare.  If, however, you find at a later date that your airline is offering seats on the flight you booked for a better up rice than you were given, don’t be afraid to contact them to try and renegotiate your price.

So, book your tickets to India  early and safe to travel in India, as you will discover for yourself. Even if you have trouble reading in any city or region, do not be discouraged, since most of India is safe at all times.

You need to keep the following tips in mind before your vacation trip and flights:

a) The best online airfare deals could be found on Wednesdays from midnight to around five in the morning.

b) If you have some flexibility with your dates, choose a later date and avoid holidays would be best for you. The earlier you book the ticket, the more you can save.

c) If you want a one way ticket instead of return ticket then make sure that you check the return rate but in most cases traveling both ways will be cheaper for you.

d) Weekends are also expensive than other weekdays because many people plan short trips during that time.

e) Try to fly with the same airlines each time because then you can build up flyer points and miles that you can redeem for free airline tickets.

The answer – is to plan ahead and be as flexible as you can with your bookings and schedules.

Here’s how to get the best and cheapest flight price for a trip to India.

a) Use the same airline or travel agents to book both your flight and hotels bookings. This vacation package idea can save you money on both the hotel and the air tickets. Also try to be as flexible as you can about the dates you travel and the route you take to your destination. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays seem to be the cheapest days to travel and you get discount flights to india with most airlines although it can vary a lot depending on the time of year.

b) Always be alert to the kinds of cheap deals offered near to the time of flight by many sites and by other similar companies.

c) Get best deal from local travel agent. These companies often take bulk purchases on blocks of seats or hotel rooms and then need to sell them off cheaply to avoid being left with them unsold. You might be surprised just how much your travel agent is prepared to lower the price if you haggle with them for a deal.

Remember to book well in advance if you can.Sure – we all know of people who held off until the last minute and then got a great deal but to be honest you run the risk of not getting on the flight or vacation trip at all. Get organised and book well ahead of the time for travel.

Should You Book Your Cheap International Flights to India early or late?

India has a lot of history and knowledge to offer with seemingly glorious world-class artifacts and goodies for you to take back home. You only need enough money to support your needs on a trip to India and a luxurious stay in a first class hotel to enjoy the sights, scents and scenery of dazzling India.

You also need to plan your trip early if you need to find those cheap airline tickets to India. Cheap airline tickets to India are commonly the first ones to go before anything else in your plan of action.

Here are some tips how to get cheap airfare to India:

1) Tis the Season to be Jolly: If you know how to get the cheapest airfare tickets, that is. One technique you have to master is learning how to recognize which flights are in season and which are not.

2) Subscribe to Travel Websites: If you’re a travel aficionado, you can book your tickets through various travel websites.ne good thing about these sites is that you’re privy to details many people aren’t – like inexpensive airfares. Plus, many of these websites also have special promos, discounts and even newsletters that can help you make travel decisions wisely.

3) Book Your Flight 2-3 Weeks Earlier : Planning is everything.Planning not only help you to get your daily work done, it also helps you score cheap plane flights.The earlier you book your flight, the cheaper your airfare usually turns out to be.

Cheap plane flights are not just a figment of your imagination. As long as you prepare yourself early enough, know how to read the seasons, and follow up on news and updates from travel websites, you’re all set to go!

Here are some Tips for finding that cheap flight to india as below:

1) Be flexible with dates: Being flexible with the dates on which you can travel expands your window of opportunity giving you access to a vastly increased number of flights.

2) Be flexible with your flight times: Being prepared to fly at unsociable hours such as early mornings or late at night increases your chance of finding cheaper flights.

3) Book early: Good savings can be made by booking your tickets well in advance. This is particularly the case if you are restricted to times and dates when you can fly.

4) Book online: This is often cheaper than booking over the phone, it offers a greater choice, and allows you to browse at your own pace.

Hilton will be core brand, key driver for growth but we also plan to bring other brands in the family—Hilton Inn Garden, Doubletree by Hilton, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Hampton by Hilton. We have a JV with DLF that’s job is to secure the land and develop the projects; the JV in turn has a management agreement with Hilton. We have a franchise deal with Marigold Hospitality for 16 Hampton hotels. We have an agreement with Shiva to develop 2,000 rooms, and on Wednesday, we signed a deal with JMD to develop 160-room Doubletree hotel in Gurgaon.

The long term potential is very strong. We intend to have 50 hotels in India by 2015, when India could account for 15-20 per cent of our Asia-Pacific revenues. The other statistic that shows India’s potential is that 17 per cent of Hilton’s new projects in Asia-Pacific are coming up in India, next only to China (63 per cent). There’s no so much underlying demand for branded hotels…

How severe is the downturn? How are you coping with it?
Overall, 2008 was an improvement over 2007; only the last quarter that was disastrous. The first nine months showed an increase in business; the last three months saw it falling off the cliff. We are getting into a situation where we don’t know how much business on the book is going to materialise. How soon we will recover, what would be the speed of the turnaround; nobody has an answer. We cannot use past experience of recovery; in 12 months we could be out of it. But whenever there’s a recovery, Asia-Pacific will be the first to recover.

It’s premature to say anything except that 2009 will be a tough year. The closure of the Bangkok airport a month ahead of the high season hurt us. But Australasia is still faring well.  We expect a 10 per cent drop in revenue per available room. First half will be tough. But there are reasons to grow the business in specific markets—events like Shanghai Expo 2010 and Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi and the preparations going in, will generate business in these cities.

In Asia-Pacific, we were hurt by the financial turmoil—our hotel in Hong Kong Central is right in the middle of banks—and a significant drop in MICE business, which is typically the first casualty in times of slowdown as businesses try to curb on travel and meetings. Right now, we can’t say how much business on the book is going materialise. In any crisis, there’s an opportunity. You need to ring-fence your existing business, target new business, and secure your long term business.

The two key drivers to drive the EBITDA are revenue and costs. A majority of our alliances are management agreements where we manage the assets on behalf of others. So, the priority is to make sure that the returns for the owners are protected. On the revenue side, you try to protect revenue by ensuring a higher enquiry conversion, use pricing flexibility to generate committed business, drive business through loyalty programmes, and ring-fence your existing business.

Take the airline crew business, which many hotels said no-to in good times but they generate plenty of room nights with a fixed term contract for a year or more. Given the downturn, many hotels may reconsider it as it gives you certain base. So, pricing flexibility is about securing pieces of business that provides you certain base over certain period of time. Similarly, you need to ring-fence your business by retaining corporate accounts, which come up for rate negotiations around September, each offering 2,000-4,000 room nights.

Real estate developers are under pressure. Are your projects on track, especially your joint venture with DLF that will develop 50-75 hotels?

We have 16 hotels with DLF that are under various stages of development. These are secure plots of land, projects which are under development and we are working on various others. There’s no reason why we would not be able to do 50 hotels with DLF by 2011. There’s a lending squeeze. Developers have their equity positions, but today no developer would want to do (a project) on 100 per cent equity. The moment lending starts happening again and confidence swings back, you will see the projects accelerating. On the existing projects, there’s no issue. The only impact I see is a slowdown in the projects than a reduction in our ambitions; the time window to realise those 50 hotels could get extended by 2-3 years. Hilton India chairman Lenny Menezes adds: DLF went on record to say that they stay fully-committed to the joint venture and the funding is in place.  There could be delay of 12-18 months. 2009 will be slower but in 2010 things will turn around. We are also developing hotels outside the joint venture; these include hotels in Saket and Rohini in Delhi. Of the 16 projects in the JV, there are 6-7 projects where the funding is in place; the rest are lesser priority as of now. Martin Rinck: With regards to other developers, the only impact I see is a slowdown as the volume of growth people had anticipated has slowed down, banks and institutions are not lending the same kind of money they were doing previously. The good news is that some of the planned projects may not happen and hence we won’t see the same increase in supply initially anticipated which helps the recovery process. Room rates will recover faster. Menezes: The slow down is more in projects where the ownership is with real estate firms. Many of our partners are fully-funded and are in a position to develop these projects.

There’s a huge demand for budget hotels. Will you play in this segment?
To make those concepts work, it’s near impossible due to the high land costs in India, which can be 60-70 per cent of the project costs or more in metros. Land cost is only 25-30 per cent in Europe and 7-10 per cent in the US. If you think of a brand that delivers a tariff of $30-40, you just can’t make it stack up. While there could be demand, it’s difficult to have a financially-viable business model. All of us are in the business of making money. If you have a business model that somehow doesn’t stack up, you are not diving into it. But they could be viable if the government extends tax breaks, for say 10 years, which it is considering.

Menezes: The main thrust of our ventures with Marigold and DLF is to have mid-market hotels, Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton by Hilton. We are very conscious that that’s where the market lies, and that would be our focus in secondary cities. (In many markets, rooms at Hampton by Hilton are available for $70-80 a night).

Much of the hit is a result of corporate cost cutting, with senior executives now increasingly travelling economy class on domestic routes. Business class tickets are about three times an economy class ticket.

“Since the financial meltdown in the US and Europe, we have seen companies in India tightening their belts. From September onwards, we have seen a fall in premium travel within India,” said Raj Sivakumar, vice president, revenue management, Jet Airways, India’s largest private airline.

In response, the airline launched an apex offer January 5, applicable to 60 flights, that are 30 to 35 per cent lower than normal business class fares.

The three-day apex fares range from Rs 7,900 to Rs 8,100 (one-way), the five-day apex fares range from Rs 6,500 to Rs 11,500 and the seven-day apex fares from Rs 4,500 to Rs 17,500 depending on the sector.

“We are looking to not just pump up the loads, but also to get less price-sensitive economy passengers to fly business,” says Sivakumar. He claims the airline has seen a five to 10 percentage point increase in premium traffic since the scheme began.