I have some interesting memories from my childhood, when families used to travel by trains and travel by a plane was only for the rich. Most of these memories are about travelling in the second class compartments with my parents and my cousins and playing ‘antakshari’ in the compartments, eating ‘poori’ and ‘alu’ and making friends with strangers. Many a times we would just take off as a family for a holiday and head to a new city to explore and visit my parents friends or relatives and stay with them.Today, however this is not common anymore. We do not tend to travel by trains, flights are more convenient and affordable. Staying with friends or relatives is not that comfortable anymore. Gone are the days where you could decide a city to visit where your relatives were staying and tell them you’re visiting.

When you have two kids in different schools and a husband who has a high demanding job and is forever travelling, your planning happens months in advance. And everything we book is online and refundable, so we end up paying a lot more than we should, as we all know refundable fares are more expensive. But I don’t have much choice now do I? With my hubby’s job we can have to cancel anytime, his work or meeting could crop up at any moment. Frustrating that it is, it’s not something that we can ignore. And we like to travel a lot. But impulse family trips don’t seem to happen.

So when I came to know of this interesting concept called BogoCards, I decided to check it out. These are basically like trip cards  which let you book a trip in advance and block a certain amount towards it. For e.g. if I want to travel to Goa, I can buy a BogoCard of 4999 for a twin trip or 5999 for a single person travelling( you pay a premium for travelling alone). Each card is valid for a single person though and is valid only for the next 12 months.

Upgrade is possible 

Another concern for people like me is that I don’t like to stay in a particular accommodation specially when I am travelling with kids, I like the place to be of a certain standard. These BogoCards have an option of paying a little extra for upgrading the property in which you want to stay.

The card is transferable;

That implies that it can be a great gifting option. You can buy a BogoCard for your parents in advance and let them customise their trip. So surprise them and let it still be convenient for them. Also unlike most other bookings that you do, you can pass this to family and friends in case you can’t travel. If you are travelling with friends then sometimes they drop off or can’t make to a certain trip, you can just call another friend and ask them to join. But yes, all that has to be done atleast 14 days in advance as mentioned in the terms and conditions.

Flights

I also checked the flight options available and they seem to have a tie up with  Goair and JetAirways and not some random flights.

Cancellation

What more ? This card can be cancelled and is refundable at a small cost of rupees 500, whew! That kind of solves a lot of my problems :).

Ofcourse they are just launching and have  a few trips within India and some International trips in their kitty which they will launch on 18th August,2015. I am hoping they will soon grow and add a lot more destinations.

If after reading this you do travel and use Bogo cards, I would love to hear your experience.

disclaimer: I just liked the concept and haven’t used it yet so the write-up is based on my site experience and is not a trip review.  This is a sponsored post.