Elite status no longer a benefit of Air India-SBI credit cards

When they launched in late 2013, I believed that the Air India-SBI credit card was possibly the best mileage earning credit card option around in India at the time. However, in typical Air India fashion, things seem to have gone downhill since then, with the latest update being, that meeting the spend thresholds will no longer get you elite status with Air India's Flying Returns program, effective 20 August 2016. That will now be entirely a factor of miles flown.

Here we take a more detailed look at this change and the descent of the AI-SBI card.


Benefits at the time of launch

When the card was launched nearly three years ago, it came with a reasonably good sign-up bonus, and Silver or Gold elite status in the AI Flying Returns program came with spending Rs 500,000 or Rs 1 million annually on the card. In addition, every Rs 100 of spend earned 4 reward points (equal to 4 air miles), annual renewal brought 5,000 points, and the best thing was the cumulative bonus rewards of 20,000, 40,000 and 90,000 points (effectively, miles) that you got on annual spends of Rs 300,000, Rs 500,000 and Rs 1 million respectively.

These were particularly important and useful given Air India's imminent entry at that time, into Star Alliance. There were some delays, and this long-standing dream realised itself in the middle of 2014 when Air India actually joined Star Alliance.

Things then started to go downhill

Air India announced their Star Alliance award charts, and booking award tickets became even bigger of an pain than it used to be. AI seemed just not able to handle the kind of queries or the demands it was receiving. Plus, AI being a government-run airline, continued (and continues) to be weighed down in performance, by the bureaucratic involvement in its operations.

Things finally reached a head earlier this year in March, when they announced a huge devaluation of the AI-SBI card earnings. The cumulative bonus rewards (which was possibly the best benefit of this card), was devalued by nearly three-fourths! The new structure we were looking at was 20,000, 30,000 and 50,000 points on annual spends of Rs 500,000, Rs 1 million and Rs 2 million respectively.

And now?

Simply put, starting 20 August 2016, the spends on the AI-SBI card will no longer qualify for Silver or Gold status in AI's FR program. That, coupled with the new bonus miles earning structure, means that this card has now officially been significantly devalued. 



I'd like to think that the program killed itself by being too generous, and then by not knowing how to handle the demand it received. Clearly, the rewards were worth the spends (at least initially), as a result of which it is likely that several folks who'd otherwise not stepped into an AI aircraft in ages, were Silver or Gold members. Others were probably handed out too many bonus miles, causing a significant addition to the airline's liabilities. All of this for a fee that was probably not high enough for SBI to sustain giving out points at.

Conclusion

So here we are. In three years, the card has gone from being the best in the Indian mileage-earning credit card space, to possibly one of the poorest. Cardholders still have time till 19 August 2016 to achieve spend-based tier status, if you're close enough already and would like to retain that status for any reason. And to be honest, some benefits may well remain even at the reduced earning levels, but I've not specifically analysed that...I could, though.

Readers: What we're interested in knowing from you, is your take on these changes. And how are you responding to these changes ... will you be moving to another card?

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