Your best bet is to look at the actual fares you'll be flying on Wheretocredit.com. There is a huge disparity in Air India flight earnings depending on the fare level, they are pretty stingy on cheapo economy fares. Once you've determined that, then you can start looking at which program has the better spend rates. Just as an example, if you get 10% credit in program X or 75% credit for the same fare in program Y, but program Y costs 50% more to redeem than program X, you're still better overall in Program Y.