realised this morning how much of a joke this frequent flyer program is....i was flying del-bbi this morning with a junior colleague from my office....while i make this trip about 25-30 times a year, my junior colleague does so every week....sometimes twice a week....

we were checking in together for an all economy flight & i got lounge access due to my status but my colleague did not....this surprised me as i always assumed he had status with the airline because of his extensive travel on ai on this route alone....

he told me he had base level status with ai despite having flown 108 flights on this route last year....not even silver....over a hundred flights with no status at all, because ai only awards status according to base miles flown & they give very little base miles on discounted fares, which is what he had been flying all year....with almost every other airline he would have had top status by now....

we had a good laugh about this & he told me he was going to switch to vistara from july onwards since they were now flying this route as well....atleast with them he would end up having top status based on this route alone....