Leftover Diamond Club miles

With the impending demise of BMI and Diamond Club I decided it high time I have a look at my account and see what I had in the way of mileage to spend.

Without going into too much detail, I had a rather pitiful balance having only flown with them and other *A carriers rarely.

I was pleased to see that I could donate some of the miles to charity, so did this, as well as treating myself to an M&S voucher. The end result is that I have a balance below the threshold to make any further donations to charity or do anything else with. I would imagine I am not alone in this.

I wrote to BMI to ask if the outstanding balance can be donated to one of the charities on the list and await their response.

A small matter to the individual, but there will be no doubt millions of miles in accounts that will simply dissapear or get lost in the ether; I therefore urge anyone likeminded to do the same and apply a bit of pressure on BMI to do something about these miles….especially as it is not abundently clear about integration of Diamond Club to any other frequent flyer program….at least not that I’ve seen…apologies if I it does exist and I have missed it.

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/about-us/customer-relations.aspx

I wrote to BMI using the form on the above link and hope if nothing else, that some of you will do the same.

That’s great.

Here’s a bump to keep this in the mind’s eye….

As I have prior posted I believe there has been a rush to judgement particularly from some fans of BA . I believe IAG and BD are probably discussing a solution with 1W and *A partners, particularly in respect of Lufthansa’s recent court case and the appeal.
It is quite likely there will be a devaluation of the value of DC miles and I am uncertain statuses will be transferred but I have never thought any change would be overnight. I do not see *A welcoming any proposal to move balances to a *A carrier but I suspect we will see *A carriers offering status matches.

Equally there is no evidence that status will not be transferred from Diamond Club to IAG programmes. Not transferring them would be a sure way to alienate many frequent flyers and I doubt BA are that stupid but of course you never know.

I can’t imagine a situation continuing where redeption on *A carriers is possible, that would incur costs for BA and I think I read above somewhere, it’s more likely that redemptions will be restricted to IAG if not BA only in order to contain costs unless LH agrees to absorb some of the bookings.

I think one of the reasons for the lack of clarity is the awaited outcome of the court case involving LH, it will set a precedent whether BA like it or not.

Somewhere in the mists of time, I seem to recall these frequent flyer schemes are set up as separate companies. It should not be problematic if this is the case to transfer over the miles or allow them to continue to be accepted by Lufthansa for flights.

Status transfer is a different matter however, again going back in time, when Swiss was taken over by Lufthansa, Swiss had its own frequent flyer scheme, called “Qualiflyer”. Points were transferred 1:1 and status was matched, in fact it was extended. If your status ran out in the next few months it was extended till February of the following year.

I found trying to redeem a couple of flights in Jan. was a bit of a minefield with very poor availability although the held desk was surprisingly helpful. Now have about 100 000 in store. Avios would be better than adiós.

I saw the writing on the wall earlier this year, and not wanting to take any chances on future transferability, I used up all my DC miles to redeem tickets to Florida in Premium Economy on Virgin for a well earned family holiday next month. Redemption rate was the same as Virgin (75K miles) so glad I took the decision.