A few months ago many savvy readers with bmi Diamond Club accounts got a scare with the purported closure of the generous frequent flyer program. It turned out to be a false alarm – Diamond Club was closing accounts in a few countries only (see details here).

At a recent investor day, Lufthansa revealed the timetable for Diamond Club closure (see presentation).  Lufthansa says the 2012 accounts will reflect the full effect of Diamond Club closure. This means Diamond Club will be closed by around 30 June 2011.  Other aspects of integration refer to a country by country approach, and this may continue to be used for account closures.

We have other hints from the Lufthansa treatment of Brussels Airline and Swiss programs.  Roughly 6 months notice was given of changes.

The 3 main airline alliances have been busy recruiting airlines. Here are some recent and upcoming changes.

Star Alliance

• TAM joined 13 May 2010 – restoring much South America coverage lost when Varig failed.
• Aegean Airlines (and Olympic Air) joins 30 June 2010.
• Air India will join, eventually (originally due to join early 2009).

Oneworld

• S7 will join in 2010.
• Kingfisher Airlines will join in 2011.

Sky Team

• Vietnam Airlines joined on 10 June 2010.
• On 22 June 2010 associate member airlines Air Europa and Kenya Airways became full members.
• TAROM joined on 25 June 2010.
• China Eastern Airlines will join in 2011.

The “how to get to” series of posts will be updated in due course.  All the recent changes have been allowed for in the recent posts on the global reach of the airline alliances – Star Alliance, Oneworld and Sky Team (coming soon).

Last week I looked at how far and wide you can travel on Star Alliance flights, and now I do the same for the Oneworld alliance.

The airline alliances connect many places all around the world. Last year I mapped which countries are reached by each alliance. Since then the global reach has been added to by new alliance members and by new destinations for existing alliance airlines.

Another way of looking at it is shown by Passport Stamp maps showing the countries served by Oneworld (below).   

See also the global reach of Sky Team.

I love airports which have priority lines for security, immigrations or customs.  They can make a big difference in travel time and also offer a reduced hassle.

The priority lane for customs at Auckland is a case in point. The regular lines can sometimes take an hour to get through, whereas until a few days ago the priority line has never taken me more than 2 minutes.  I have to remember not to buy any food (no duty free chocolates) since that invalidates the use of the lane, but it is a small price to pay.

Arriving at Auckland the other day was the first time I encountered a time dissaving here. There was only one x-ray machine operating in the priority line and the queue was lengthy when I arrived because some plonker had failed to declare some food items and his bags were being checked.  The regular, non-priority, lines were moving swiftly.

It would have been nice if the layout provided a view of both options before you have to commit to a line. In that case I could have skipped through in the regular line instead.

The airline alliances connect many places all around the world. Last year I mapped which countries are reached by each alliance. Since then the global reach has been added to by new alliance members and by new destinations for existing alliance airlines.

Another way of looking at it is shown by Passport Stamp maps showing the countries served by Star Alliance (below).

See also the global reach of Oneworld and the global reach of Sky Team.

You have to be quick to get the best deals. Just a few days ago, Priority Club’s 5000 points a night points break awards for July and August were released. The best hotels on the list (eg Intercontinental Stockholm) have already sold out.  This continues the recent trend. If you want a decent pointsbreak award you need to watch very closely for when they are released.

Fortunately, the release dates are normally 3 or 4 weeks before the start of each 2 month period and thus predictable and easy to use for those who plan ahead.

The 5,000 points a night Pointsbreak awards are now available for stays through to 30 August at selected hotels. As usual the list can be found here.  IC Stockholm seems the best of the current bunch.

Easyjet has announced they will be fitting equipment to some of their aircraft to trial an ash detection system. Using infra-red the equipment reportedly detects ash particles in a similar way as radars detect water.

Since the major complaint, by airlines and regulatory authorities alike, was the lack of data during the Eyjafjallajokul eruption’s European airspace closures, this is hopefully a great step in improving air safety.

A new service from Autoslash has great potential to save consumers lots of money on car rental prices.

I had a look at the beta site recently. It looks good, is easy to use and seems to have no problem finding the best rates. I wasn’t able to test the best feature though – like Yapta, Autoslash keeps checking rates and emails you if rates subsequently drop. The service is free and automatic.

Autoslash has worldwide coverage, and indeed happily returned results for Nelson, New Zealand – a small city of 40,000 people.  Smaller towns and places with only independent/local rental cars didn’t work so well.  11 major car rental companies were covered when I checked.  All prices returned are in US$. I’d like to see local currencies as well.

At time of writing this post, the Autoslash web site is still in beta but you can already use it to make bookings and save.