What is going to happen to BMI Diamond Club miles after BA's acquisition?
As most of you might already be aware of, British airline BMI was sold by Lufthansa to its Oneworld competitor IAG (aka British Airways). Once the news was confirmed, one thought came to my mind: what happens with BMI's Diamond Club frequent flier miles?
As both airlines operated out of the UK, many frequent travelers were members of both British Airways' executive club and BMI's Diamond Club.
The truth is that BMI has moved fast to inform its Diamond Club members and in the last few days has sent a couple of messages providing updates...it looks like BMI Diamond Club cardholders are actually going to get a good deal and, whereas they will have only until the 31st of May to use their miles within the Star Alliance group, the Diamond Club programme itself will continue to work as usual.
This is possibly the reason that BMI is still accepting applications for its Diamond Club programme while I am writing these lines:
I ignore if this "business as usual" will last for long, as Diamond Club members are being invited to join British Airways' Executive Club programme. They will also be able to exchange miles into IAG's Avios at a rate of 1:1.
This is literally, an excerpt of BMI's Diamond Club notification email:
"As part of the transition of bmi into British Airways, from 1 May 2012 British Airways is inviting you, as a Diamond Club member, to also join the Executive Club at your equivalent tier status level. Diamond Club Gold customers will be invited to become Gold members of the Executive Club and Silver members to become Silver, which will be in addition to your Diamond Club membership. Further details will follow shortly."
Whereas it's not stated explicitly, I guess IAG's plan is to progressively transition all Diamond Club members to Executive Club. In any case, I think Diamond Club's members are getting quite a good deal and many of those that were on both programmes will be able to consolidate and advance their status within the programme really fast.