BMI goes the OneWorld way
As we had announced earlier on this blog, BMI has been acquired by IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia. As a pert of this acquisition, BMI will no longer be a part of Star Alliance – that membership ends April 19th. It will soon become a part of OneWorld, allowing for redemptions on OneWorld airlines like British, American, Qantas. See full announcement is attached here.
We are all of course, hoping that BMI will adopt the Avios mileage program and allow us to merge our BMI balances with those of British Airways. Check out One Mile at a Time’s recommendation to get BMI accounts for everyone in your family. BMI gives 1,000 miles to new members. these may all become Avios miles soon. Remember, BA, like BMI allows family accounts.
Dear Sanjeev
We’d like to advise you of some forthcoming changes to the bmi Diamond Club programme.
From 19 April 2012, the ability for Diamond Club members to earn Status and Destinations miles and to redeem miles will cease on the Lufthansa Group airlines (Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, and Brussels Airlines).
Any redemption tickets issued prior to this date for travel will be honoured.
All Star Alliance status benefits will remain unaffected by this change.
We are working with British Airways to offer Diamond Club customers the ability to earn and redeem miles on British Airways and its oneworld partners following completion of the sale. We will do everything we can to communicate more detail as soon as possible.
Regards
Keeley Downing
Diamond Club Manager
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“We are all of course, hoping that BMI will adopt the Avios mileage program and allow us to merge our BMI balances with those of British Airways”
I beg to differ, I would much prefer BMI to be a standalone member of oneworld maintaining its current award chart 🙂
I’m also desperately hoping that Star offers an alliance-wide status match to bmi elites 🙂
i don’t really care if Diamond Club stays separate as long as we can use the points either directly on the BA website or on the BMI one for BA flights (like BA does) rather than having to call like now to use points on another airline, even when the flight is a code-share..
that’s a major drawback of the diamond club to me currently: I want to be able to see how much it’ll cost me, playing around with dates etc.. almost impossible to do on the phone.
but for simplicity, I’d rather convert my diamond club points to avios on the BA scheme.. I never fly BMI anyway as they don’t go anywhere I want.
Personally I would like to transfer my points and tier to another Star Alliance member. I’m likely due a gold status this year with my flights and now I will not achieve it! I will not fly with BA on principle, so I lose out big time.