This year, we’re sponsoring a team to participate in the Mongol Rally. The Mongol Rally is a gruelling no back-up, no support, no set route adventure that is expected to raise over £500,000 for charities. Teams will take on up to 15 countries and 10,000 miles’ worth of mountains, deserts, bad roads, no roads, bandits and various other pickles in comically unsuitable 1-litre cars.
The race begins this Saturday at the amazing Festival of Slow in Goodwood, England. Cleartrip is sponsoring a team named No Right Turn. The two member team stars Amanda, from Australia, and Mahesh Mathai, from India, and will be taking on the rally in an ambulance.
In addition to the official charities, team No Right Turn will be trying to raise as much money as they can for Magic Bus. Magic Bus is Cleartrip’s favourite charity and we’re thrilled to give them a helping hand with every chance we get.
To keep us posted, the team will be posting updates live from the road to our Twitter account using the hashtag mongolrally. We’re very excited to be sponsoring the team and to be getting a live stream of their grand adventure.
So, follow @Cleartrip on Twitter and stay tuned to the adventure.
This rocks!
Hi Hrush,
I have a suggestion. Is there a way you can work at reducing the 500 bucks charge which you put on rescheduling or cancelling a ticket. This is over and above the cancellation charges/rescheduling charges of the airline. I understand that you need to run a business. But I have now started booking tickets directly from websites since say Spicejet charges 750 rs and you charge 500 rs and I lose 1250 Rs on a single scheduling! Sometimes the ticket price itself is 2.5k only. I just find it way too steep. Obviously I would be more than happy if Spicejet also reduces it to 500 bucks and you guys reduce it to 250 bucks. Some of us have started booking on websites directly to avoid this rescheduling charge/cancellation charge. But its one real pain booking from website since I cannot keep track of my travel plans. I book on an average 4-6 flights a month. Please see if you can do something about these prices. I understand Yatra charges 300 bucks. Please work on it.
Pradeep–thanks for the suggestion, we’ll see what we can do here.
Hrush,
1. While cancellation fees contribute to your revenues, I’m sure (and I hope) you’re much happier building revenue from ticketing new fares rather than cancellations.
2. Whether it is 300 or 500 is not the issue, because even the airline fee alone is grudgingly accepted, so even 1 rupee over and above that would be deemed near-unacceptable.
Given #1 and #2 are true, why don’t you trade in this small fee for building user loyalty and a larger customer base?
What I’m saying is that every X no. of bookings through cleartrip allows the user Y no. of free cancellations valid for Z no. of months. Of course, you still pass on the unavoidable airline fee.
A littler version of the loyalty rewards that you had considered unviable earlier?
Dhruv–we’re still doing the math on this, but haven’t reached any conclusions yet. Our intentions are certainly to do something along the lines you’ve suggested.