Hi all, I hope this is the right thread for a quick experience report on my travels through DEL yesterday...

I had booked LAX-AMS-DEL-AMS-LAX on KLM in J several months ago and booked a private tour company to handle accommodations and travel within India.

The tour ended with an AI flight from Jaipur to Delhi, which arrived T3 at 5:00pm on the 29th. The KLM departure was at 3:00am on the 30th.

The tour company booked us into the Eaton Transit Hotel since the layover was so long, and we didn't want to try to go back into Delhi for dinner. I was a little worried that baggage / security might be a problem, based on mixed reviews, but my experience was perfectly smooth:

We were greeted at the gate by an Eaton representative when we arrived DEL. The rep walked us to baggage claim and helped us load our five bags onto a trolley.

The rep walked us through security at an elevator to the right of badge claim, through security at what appeared to be a transit lounge, and through baggage X-Ray for all of our bags (to-be-checked and carry-on).

He then walked us to the elevator to the hotel (which is indeed hard to locate, and the hotel name does not appear anywhere -- apparently they're going through a name change (not sure whether Eaton is the old or new name)).

The rep checked us into our room and let us keep our bags and the trolley in the room. This was great for reorganizing / repacking. The room was small, but not cramped. The view was of the international check-in area. Everything was clean and modern. The shower had very hot water. All was good. We had dinner in their cafe which has international menu (pasta, etc in addition to Indian food) and breakfast all day.

On check out, we took our trolley full of bags down to international check-in, got our boarding passes, checked our bags, went through security, and hit the ITC Green lounge before heading to our gate.

I had read elsewhere that you can't access your checked bags at the transit hotel, and maybe that's true on the international side (for international-to-international connections). But on the domestic side (for domestic-to-international, etc), everything was easy.

Hope this helps, and happy travels.