Have you ever used the https://www.premiermiles.co.in/ Citi portal for ticket booking? Should you even bother?
You definitely should. This article will show you why it should be your default place to book tickets if you hold the Citi Premiermiles credit card.
I always booked my travel via makemytrip. At least one of my credit cards provided me with discounts upto 12%. And that was that.
This month, I had to book total air tickets worth Rs 24000 X 2 and knew that, the 12% offer on makemytrip would max out at Rs 1500. The citi premier miles offer gives 10 miles/Rs 100 or 4.5% worth of savings without any coupon jhanjhat.
So decided to check out https://www.premiermiles.co.in/ for the first time. The website is simple and comfortable to use. It is fast at booking tickets as it does not ask you any optional data/questions.
On first glance, its prices were exactly same. However, when I went to pay, its prices seemed much lower compared to makemytrip.
The Revelation
The premiermiles website does not charge any Convenience Fee.
Convenience fee is charged by all booking websites and they charge it per passenger per ticket.
For eg makemytrip charges Rs 290 per passenger per ticket (or Rs 230X2 for return tickets). Others also charge similar or higher.
I have added the comparison price for a sample return ticket on both websites.
For eg if you were to book a return ticket for 2 people you will be saving
Convenience fee: Rs 230 X 4 = Rs 920
10 miles/Rs 100 (Rs 19174 X 4.5%) = Rs 863
Total savings with Citi premiermiles = Rs.1783.
Even with the best discount on MMT, you would just save Rs 1500. But that’s not always possible. So why not just book via citipremiermiles portal.
The train/bus points redemption
For the above air tickets you can redeem your reward points at the rate of
1 reward point = Rs 0.45.
This is just like HDFC’s smartbuy where you get the best point value when you redeem for flight ticket or hotels.
However, Citi is more generous. You can book via its partners like Makemytrip, Goibibo, Yatra and still “pay with points” at the best rate of 1 reward point= Rs 0.45.
To note here is that, even bus or train tickets booked via these partners give the same/best value for the reward points.
Ever since, Citi had removed the offer for loading Paytm wallets, I was rather unhappy with my Citi PremierMiles credit card. In fact, I was thinking about closing the card.
But with this knowledge of no convenience fee for air tickets, I think I’ll be holding this card a bit longer. Do check out my Citi Premiermiles credit card review.
Conclusion
I am a fan of Citi Premiermiles portal. I don’t know why it is not talked about as much as it deserves. Do check it out.