Phoning the ICC from within India
 

Is it possible to call the ICC from within India without placing an international call to the UK? If so, what's the number?

bmi give their sales contact in India as:

2A, Stadium House
Veer Nariman Road
Churchgate, Mumbai - 400020
T +91 22 22874721 / 22874725
F +91 22 22874197

May or may not be the ICC number

That's a sales office I believe. The DC ICC is in Pune.

No reason why it would be, really. I started my search on the bmi website, and saw the contact details you've quoted for their Mumbai sales office, before asking my question about whether the ICC (in Pune) can be reached by means of a domestic call.

Thanks, but the question remains open.

EDIT: RAPC was faster. Again.

Can't you use Skype to get cheap int'l calls?

Yes, you just set up a subscription to one of the unlimited country packages. I did that from Thailand at xmas and spent about an hour on the phone to Donington rearranging flights home and a good few hours talking to the family. Cost £1.95 for the whole lot.

Obviously you need to have a decent interweb connection.

"Ventura India" and Google. Take it from there.

Yes. Call cost isn't the problem. It would just be good to avoid the line quality issues associated with a call from India to the UK, patched back to India. Adding VoIP into the equation is unlikely to improve matters.

Been there, tried that. Found some fascinating promotional blurb and various phone numbers, including one in Leeds and a few in Pune, but nothing that gave me any degree of confidence about getting put through to the Ventura agents working on the bmi contract. Did you find something more promising, FlyingOnceMore?

No, but if I really wanted to take it further I'd put my Magnum PI cap on, call said Pune phone number and ask.

There was a report on another thread recently that the US Sales Office is able to route calls through to diamond club (ICC), this is why I posted the India Office details, perhaps they can do the same?

I can confirm that that works, at least sometimes. I still prefer paying 2 or 3 cents a minute to call via the UK, though, as that usually gets me a clearer line.

It will certainly be worth a try. (We're going to be monitoring late-breaking award availability for TATL flights immediately following an India trip, with a view to changing a redemption if we can get a better itinerary than the one we've booked.)

Yes... and ask for "Mansoor". :D

Or just yell YO MAN PAX down the phone :D It's the secret password ;)

That report might have been from us. At least 10 for 10 using this route. 800-788-0555. Just call and say you need to book/change a ticket using frequent flyer miles. Every time they say, "please hold on I'll connect you."

This has been very useful for the not-so-well-trained agents who keep putting us on hold for 5-10 minutes at a time leading to 45 minute-1 hour redemptions. ;)

I'm frequently stupid, and sometimes lazy, but I don't think that on this occasion it was stupid or lazy to post the question I did. I'd tried searching, but not found anything very useful or definitive.

That's got to be the first time anyone has suggested that a phone call to Pune might be a better way to get reliable information than drawing on the collected wisdom of this board. ;)

I did try asking Sita this question when I called the ICC a few minutes ago. Her answer was that it isn't possible, i.e. that if I'm in Mumbai and want to speak to them in Pune then I need to place an international call to the UK. I remain hopeful that someone here will have a better answer.

Given that Sita is one of the better agents, I fear that that is the best answer you'll get. Failing that, how far is for a trip in person to Pune? ;)

Only 80 miles or so. Pretty hard to pick up any *A miles on that route, though there's probably a way to do it if you fly via SIN.

Mind you, when we booked our tickets to BOM we did get the standard "and would you like me to arrange a Hertz car for your time in Mumbai, sir?" I just laughed at the time (me? drive in Mumbai???), but on reflection it would make a great FT "do": fly out to BOM, once the new Lufthansificated bmi has introduced direct daily flights from six UK regional airports, and make a road trip to Pune.

:D^

I don't remember anyone being advised to call Ventura (India) and ask what the direct number for their bmi office is.

Why would they have an in-country phone number Diamond Club calls from India?

The airline doesn't operate to the country and so I would assume there are only a few diamond club members (given it used to be difficult to join from all but a couple of countries..)

Do they have even have local numbers for countries they do operate to, like Armenia or Azerbaijan?

I don't think anyone has suggested that "they" have a number specifically intended for this purpose. If they did, it would be published and we would have found it without this thread.

The thinking behind my question was that calls made to the ICC are presumably patched to geographical numbers (and for many 0800 and 0870 numbers in the UK it's become fairly easy to find out the 'real' number). Given the ICC's physical location, it should be possible to reach it from within India without the call being routed outside the domestic telephone network.

I doubt that the call is actually terminated on the PSTN in India that way. The calls are patched into India on huge IP trunks, not on traditional phone networks, so there is not necessarily a need for there to actually be a local number for the UK number to point to. There may be one but there doesn't have to be.

Useful info, thanks.

Given there doesn't seem to be anyone here with company-specific inside knowledge, it looks as though resolving this question is going to take some phone calls.

You mean trial and error? That could take a while :D

Well I'm in Argentina and have no problem using Skype to the ICC when making redemptions. For the cost of a few pence one really can't complain.
I used to stay yards from the now closed Goldfish call centre back home. It might as well have been 1000s of miles away as the only way one could contact them was over the phone.......knocking on their door and paying them a personal visit wasn't an option. Used to have a laugh with the agents when they saw where I stayed and I told them to look out of their window and I would give them a wave. :D

Tried that, and this is what I found...

http://picasaweb.google.com/insane.w...80521241497858

:D

Fantastic! :p

All for this one moment
 

Splutter. Coffee everywhere. And it might have been better for LH if their advert and slogan hadn't appeared immediately underneath jamesbrownontheroad's link.

I think the 4th guy is saying "Yo, ManPax!" to the guy at the sink. :D

Actually, there is - Fly BOM-PNQ on 9w, get LH miles... ;) :p

Quite correct - they probably do not even have or allow a landline where the call center employees have access to it. Also, any cellphones are probably banned - I have never heard the GSM interference that normally is associated with receiving SMS's/calls on the sly, when talking to the ICC.

However, that doesn't mean that it is not happening - that interference is usually associated with analog PaBX's (used for domestic call centers, as each digital phone costs quite a packet), and they could be using an all-digital one..

Kewl! :p

That bathroom is in a very impressive condition for India, regardless! ^ :D

I live in the US, and called the US Sales number (the one quoted in this thread) last saturday mid-day to book a redemption ticket using my BD miles.

The agent who answered told me that the Diamond Club desk was closed, and to call back Monday thru Friday. So I have some questions.

1. Is there any way for me to make a redemption ticket on weekends when calling from the US? If so, is there a better number I should use?

2. Different topic, but if I wanted to book a redemption ticket IST-LHR-LAX on TK/NZ, and the first leg was in F but the second leg in C, would I be charged as two separate awards? Or would I simply be billed business class miles since the longest leg is in business?

It is my understanding that the US sales office can route calls through to the DC call centre in India, which is open until 8pm UK time at weekends and weekdays, so I expect you have been given bad information. You could always ring the international number on the back of your card (a UK number which automatically routes through to India), although this will of course cost you more.

On your second point, if it is a one-way journey, the convention is to charge by longest leg, IST-LHR is substantially shorter than LHR-LAX so you can enjoy TK First on Business Class miles. Note: 'charge in line with longest leg' is convention and not mentioned anywhere in the rules. For return journeys the practice is to charge for the highest class of travel, this is mentioned in the T&Cs

Ermm... used Hertz in India a few times the past year and all their cars are driven by a Hertz employee :cool:

Private chauffeur service? Cool indeed...

Yep, that why the clock and mileage start/ends when they leave/return their downtown garage. A bit intransparent... in USD they are comparatively cheap but compared to local INR rates they are expensive. On the other hand very very good service ^:-::-::-::-::-: well worth the money.

The question is, whether one earns BD miles for these rentals??

You have to retroclaim, as they are a Hertz franchise and not linked to the global hertz system.