Travel marketplace ixigo launches travel currency

NEW DELHI: Travel marketplace ixigo has launched a virtual travel currency which the company claims is industry's first that works across multiple OTAs and airlines that are partners with ixigo.

"Research reveals that travellers in India are tired of gimmicky travel loyalty programmes, cashback offers, and wallets that come with limitations and restrictions on their earning and usage. Most existing programmes have minimum booking values to earn anything at all, you get your cashback or earnings many days after your booking and your earned value is most likely to expire within 90 days. Also, you can never use all of your earnings at once, as they only allow usage of a small percentage on every transaction. All that changes today, with the launch of ixigo money - India's first no-gimmicks, no limits virtual travel currency," said ixigo, CEO & cofounder, Aloke Bajpai in a statement.

In addition to all these benefits, ixigo also announced that any traveller who pays their entire booking amount using ixigo money will be charged zero convenience fee by the booking provider.

With the value of one ixigo money being equivalent to a rupee, users are entitled to use the entire balance of their ixigo money account on their next booking transaction. Travellers can avail the benefits of ixigo money by simply signing in to the ixigo website or app on android or iOS.

To announce the launch, ixigo is giving new users Rs 1000 worth of ixigo money on domestic and Rs 2000 worth of ixigo money on international flight bookings. Existing users can get upto Rs.500 worth of ixigo money on domestic flights.