At one point of time getting an access to the airport lounge was considered something of a privilege and class. It was not a common thing to get access to the lounge, unless you are flying a business class or you have some very premium card which allows you access to the lounge.

But now this scene has completely changed. During my recent travel to Delhi, which is a domestic travel, I was surprised by the amount of people at the lounge. I get access to the lounge on my credit card. These days most of the credit card companies are offering this facility of Airport lounge access on a certain amount of spending in a quarter, which is not a big amount at all and even a lower middle class income person will be able to achieve this target if used the card in the right manner. So, with that definitely the number of people who have access to the lounge increases.

At Mumbai airport, it was still decent, there was a short queue but it went fast and the lounge is big so it did not feel much with the crowd. But at Delhi airport when I reached, first of all there was a long queue. From nowhere a lady came to me and she got me in the lounge, I have no idea why she had to come to me only but it was good to skip the long line. With the line, I was telling my son, let's skip this and we can sit out anywhere, but then we skipped the line so we went in.

Stepping inside the first shock was that the air-conditioning was off, I am not sure if it was off or with so many people inside it was not enough. Then there was no place to sit; we managed to get a side seat facing the runway like the bar table. By this time, honestly I was not in a mood to stay there anymore. I was barely there for 5 minutes and it felt claustrophobic, so me and my son left the place. I did not feel like it is a privilege anymore. It felt more of a chaos then a benefit. The place felt more like a business lunch hangout then a lounge.

The credit card companies are offering these benefits to get more of corporate crowd buy their cards. Nowadays people have multiple cards with these benefits, so what was once a luxury is now a common accessibility.