Back in June it looked like bmi’s Diamond Club frequent flyer program had only a year left of life, that it would be merged into Miles & More in the summer of 2011.
Wandering Aramean reports that tales of the program’s demise have been grossly overstated — at least according to a chat with bmi’d CEO, the Diamond Club program will not get folded into Miles & More during 2011. And they’re even still investing in and working on the program, introducing Star Alliance awards (ed: (meant to say — upgrade awards) this spring.
I still ultimately expect Diamond Club to cease as an independent program evetually. The CEO isn’t denying that this is a likely outcome. But it won’t happen so quickly. That’s great for me because I still have plenty of bmi miles, I want to use them still as part of the bmi program and not as part of their less-valuable Miles & More cousins.
This is probably because LH is still figuring out what they want to do with bmi, and if they decide to sell it to Virgin (an always popular rumor), then having a separate mileage program makes it easier for the transaction to have value on passengers, instead of just the value of slots at LHR
What do you mean by “introducing Star Alliance awards this spring?” Can’t you already use BMI miles to book *A awards?
Gary, why don’t you like Miles & More? Is it because of low award availability, hard to earn miles, or some other factor?
@Brian award availability in premium cabins is great. Miles are easy to earn, especially flying on premium cabin fares. It’s not that I don’t like Miles & More. I do! It’s just that it’s not nearly as good a value program as bmi Diamond Club. I just like bmi MUCH BETTER (because of better award chart mostly).
@Chris I meant to say Star Alliance UPGRADE awards.
If I am looking to bolster my BMI miles balance, what is the most effective way to do this? Being stateside, I don’t fly BMI.
@Chris flying premium cabin fares? 🙂 I use bmi as my Hilton Double Dip partner, 1000 miles per night up to 3k per stay.