For years, complimentary airport lounge access was the ultimate flex attached to a credit card. One swipe at an airport’s lounge reception, and you’d enter a quieter space with hot meals, Wi-Fi, coffee and comfortable seating. Once a premium perk only for affluent travellers, even entry-level cards were soon offering lounge visits to rope in customers.But the economics of lounge access in India has changed in the last two years. Banks have tightened access, set minimum spending criteria and, in some cases, removed lounge benefits entirely. This means lounge access is no longer “free” unless you are a valuable customer for the bank.Indian airports have changed rapidly since Covid. Passenger traffic has surged, terminals have expanded, and flyers wait in long queues to enter lounges. By paying for each customer who entered using their card, banks and card issuers subsidised lounge operators. As lounge usage grew, so did the bill for banks. This is why many lenders have now linked lounge access to card spending pattern—they want customers to actively use the cards on retail spends before unlocking airport privileges.Several major issuers have changed tack. HDFC Bank revised lounge access rules for many cards, including the Tata Neu series and Regalia. Complimentary access is now increasingly tied to quarterly spending milestones. ICICI Bank has done the same. On many cards, its users must have spent around Rs.35,000 or more in the previous quarter to get complimentary lounge visits in the current quarter. At Axis Bank, some cobranded cards have altogether ended domestic lounge access.The logic is simple: lounge access has become a heavily used perk. Banks earlier assumed that only premium customers or frequent flyers would visit lounges regularly. Instead, many customers signed up purely for lounge access, often with a fee waiver and otherwise using the cards sparingly otherwise.That model stopped making financial sense. Now, banks classify customers more aggressively. If you are a heavy spender, the issuer considers you profitable and continues to subsidise your lounge visits. If your card remains inactive except for airport usage, the perks will likely vanish.This has led to a new hierarchy in India’s credit card market. At the entry level, many lifetime-free or low membership fee cards still offer limited domestic lounge visits, but almost always with spending strings attached. Cards issued on Visa, Mastercard and RuPay networks may offer a visit or two per quarter, subject to minimum monthly or quarterly spends.Mid-tier travel cards now typically offer structured access. A user may get four domestic lounge visits per quarter and a handful of international lounge visits each year with operators like Priority Pass or DreamFolks. However, spending criteria have become increasingly common even in this segment.At the top end are superpremium cards—invite-only or ultra-premium travel products that still offer unlimited access. Their annual fee often runs into tens of thousands of rupees, but banks justify the pricing through premium travel benefits. Another major trend is the shift from direct swipe access to voucherbased or app-based systems. Earlier, customers could just present their card at a lounge reception. Nowadays, banks require customers to generate lounge vouchers on apps or portals after meeting specific spending criteria. Many HDFC Bank have already implemented similar systems.For travellers, this means airport lounge access now requires more planning. It is no longer enough to hold a card with lounge branding. They must monitor spending thresholds, activation timelines and lounge programme rules. There is also an important distinction between domestic and international lounge access. Domestic access is usually tied directly to card networks like Visa, Mastercard or RuPay. International access, meanwhile, is typically routed through programmes such as Priority Pass, LoungeKey or DreamFolks, which come with their own usage caps and restrictions.The bottom line is that lounge access in India is evolving from a mass-market giveaway into a reward for engaged, high-spending customers. Travellers who optimise their card usage can still extract significant value. But the era of virtually unlimited complimentary airport lounge access on lightly used cards is steadily coming to an end.The Author is Founder and Editor, Livefromalounge.com(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)