Sheesh - seems like ages since I've been here. So many changes, business up and running - bred my f...
Sheesh - seems like ages since I've been here. So many changes, business up and running - bred my first litter of labs - moved house - guess I had better work on catching up now!
Member since:20.03.2001
Reviews:275
Members who trust:170
In light of the fact that I am now waiting for around 7 hotels to be listed on Ciao, and that I walked out of the only hotel in disgust for the only one they have listed, (you will have to wait now until I take advantage of my free visit) and I am dithering over whether to go to Australia in a few weeks time, but nervous of the thought of 24 hours on a plane, I thought I would try writing on something completely different, so here I am, be gentle with me.
BMI Diamond club, as its name suggests is a loyalty club membership for British Midland customers, the UK’s second full airline carrier. Therefore the most logical way to sign up, is when booking a flight with them. You can however, also sign up for a BMI Classic or Platinum Mastercard with MBNA, where you will currently receive 20,000 destination miles (sufficient for one short flight) when you make your first purchase, and points for every pound spent on the card thereafter, but more about this later.
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TYPES OF MILES BMI Diamond Club offers two types of miles, destination and membership, the former can be accumulated quite quickly, the latter are a little rarer. There are three levels of membership, Blue, Silver and Gold; the only way to ‘climb the ladder’ is to be a frequent flyer with BMI or their partners in the Star Alliance, so, with an additional 15,600 miles required for my silver membership, I suspect for the majority of people, the destination miles will be more appealing and easier to acquire.
Membership miles do what they say on the tin, and help you climb up the elitest membership ladder,
Destination miles do just that, help you get to destinations for free, or at a reduced rate. =================
MEMBERSHIP LEVELS ***BLUE*** This is little ol me for one, and what do I get for my troubles? In reality, not an awful lot, I can get access to my
account on-line 24/7, I get a free on-line diamond club magazine where I can trade in cash / miles for gifts and offer.
Us Blues also have a dedicated telephone line for booking flights, but as the best prices are often acquired on-line, not much use unless there is a problem.
We do get priority over other customers on waiting lists and standby flights, telephone check-in if travelling only with hand luggage, and apparent discounts and upgrades with hotel partners, car-hire and airport car-parking including Avis, BCP, Jurys, Hilton,
You also get free access to Granada workspace lounges and meeting facilities.
***SILVER*** In addition to the above benefits (?), if you succeed in acquiring Silver status (suddenly that flight to Oz with SingaporeAirlines looks more appealing), you get priority ticket sales and check-in at Heathrow Terminal one, guaranteed seat reservations on business tickets with 48 hours notice, and exclusive access to the diamond club, overseas and executive lounges and also those of South African Airways, but of course, you do need to be flying with BMI.
In addition, you get an additional 20Kg baggage allowance when flying with BMI (not BMI Baby), you get 25% destination miles bonus every month and of course, like us blue holders you get your own dedicated telephone line.
Bearing in mind that BMI are part of the Star Alliance network, and therefore you also get silver membership status of the network, giving you certain priorities on reserve and waiting lists of Star Alliance Members.
To retain your silver status, you need to earn 16,000 membership miles year on year, and once you get to 38,000 miles you automatically get upgraded to Gold Status.
***GOLD*** This is where the real benefits kick in, as you would expect you get everything under the blue and silver levels plus four complementary upgrade vouchers to use when buying BMI Flights and upgrades on free flights to business (or premium economy on long haul flights).
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EARNING MILES Having read all that, it would be quite easy to become quite negative about Diamond club, as for the majority of us mere mortals, earning 16 or 38 thousand membership miles in any one year would be quite difficult. I know I fly a fair bit, but much of it is domestic or short haul, and very little of it with BMI, simply because my nearest departure airport is Heathrow, and I can get better offerings with other airlines from Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff.
But on to how you can earn them. Well of course, the most logical way is by flying with BMI, how many miles do you earn per flight? That I can’t say, because they have a formula for everything, dependent on the type of flight you book and the distance travelled. Needless to say if you fly first / business you get a higher formula calculation than if you book a web only flight (which tend to be ridiculously cheap); but you do acquire both destination and membership miles for all BMI flights (but you get NOTHING for BMI Baby, because they are a budget airline, I find this laughable, because on the occasions I have checked both for flight prices, almost without exception, BMI are cheaper than BMI Baby, such is life).
If it is any help, I acquired 400 membership and 400 destination miles for my return trip to Madrid, considering this cost less than £70, certainly better than a kick in the teeth.
You can also earn membership and destination miles (and spend destination miles) with Star Alliance members, namely:
o Air Canada o Air New Zealand o All Nippon Airways o Asiana o Austrian Airlines o LOT o Lufthansa o Adria Airways o Croatia Airlines o SAS o Blue 1 o Singapore Airlines o SpanAir o Thai Airways International o US Airways o United Airlines o Varig
In addition, you can earn and spend destination miles with Virgin Atlantic and South African Airways.
Even if you find yourself unlikely to fly with any of these airlines, don’t despair, you can also earn points with a number of hotel chains at a rate of 1,000 destination miles per night, up to a maximum of 3,000 miles per stay, these are Hilton, Jurys, Radisson SAS and Radisson Edwardian. And with the Hilton chain, you have the double whammy of earning Hilton Honours points at the same time.
Members can also transfer Amex and BAA points to destination miles, and pick up miles from the majority of UK airport related parking schemes including BCP.
For me, the real benefit comes from my BMI Mastercard, where I earn 2 miles for every £1 spent (1.5 miles on BMI Classic Card) and 4 miles for every £1 spent on BMI flights, plus if booking BMI or BMI Baby flights with your card, you don’t have to pay the ever increasing credit card surcharge. Of course, if you don’t already have a BMI Credit card, you get awarded 20,000 destination miles when you make your first purchase (in true sue.51 style I messed this up because of being over keen to get my card, and am now trying to reclaim my miles).
You can earn points with Avis Car Hire, but beware the sting, this must be within 24 hours of taking your BMI flight, and at a BMI departure / destination airport.
=================SPENDING MILES Always the best bit, something for nothing; for the shortest flight you need 12,000 destination miles, which would get you anywhere in the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland, or you could hang on until you get 200,000 points and have a free round the world trip.
In between these two extremes there are 10 other zones requiring varying numbers of points for the trips. In fact, you can go to 755 different destinations in 132 countries using your miles, and if this wasn’t enough, if you don’t have all the points you can pay half the price in cash, and you can spend with all the Star Alliance members.
You can also book BMI Baby UK domestic connecting flights for 7,500 destination miles.
Miles can also be cashed in for hotel and car-hire vouchers, although with my experience of hotel usage, the correlation between the points required and their value offers little benefit, particularly in this day and age of internet bookings, special offers and sites such as laterooms and active hotels to name just a few.
=================THE WEBSITE Remember, I mentioned on-line access to your account what seems like an age ago? Well here you can monitor your account balance, check out special offers, enter competitions, and take advantage of discount offers on various hotels and flights, all from the comfort of your own home.
BE AWARE: To earn points you need your BMI Membership card with you, you will need the number to book flights and hotels, and if you lose it, as I did, you will wait up to a month for a new card, you have been warned.
=================SUMMARY OK, some of this is a little tongue in cheek, but even if you don’t fly regularly, if you use a credit card, the facilities of the aforementioned hotels, and the occasional flight with BMI, what have you got to lose?
If you fly regularly, particularly, first or business class then I suspect you really are on to a winner, if you don’t, but are prepared to wait for your rewards, then you will eventually get ‘something for nothing’, although it could be a long wait, and a bit of a pain if they change the reward structure, or decide to expire the miles (which they don’t do at the moment), but nevertheless worth a punt.
And for anyone who is still reading, do I go to Australia, and if so, which is the best airline?
Sue.51 – (if there are any ‘s’ or ‘e’s missing, blame my keyboard, not ME)
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