Some stray pages (now gone) on the bmi website suggests the generous bmi Diamond Club frequent flyer program may be closing in a month’s time with a forced transfer to Lufthansa Miles & More.  Last year Lufthansa bought bmi and ever since the frequent flyer program, a favourite for many people on Flyer Talk for it’s generosity, has been on borrowed time.

Since miles will almost certainly be transferred across 1:1 (as they were for Swiss a few years ago), it is a good idea to book some awards now before the miles devalue substantially (and before the Diamond Club call centre gets overwhelmed with requests).

When Lufthansa bought Swiss they gave several months notice of the closure of that program, transferred miles 1:1 at the end date and lined up the status levels.  Given bmi Gold (Star Alliance Gold) is much easier to attain than Lufthansa Senator status (Star Alliance Gold) it will be interesting to see if they do a straight match or only those earning bonus miles above 55k will get Senator. I think the former is more likely but the latter can’t be ruled out (not least because Senator status lasts for over 2 years).

Edited to add – the stray pages are still there.

As promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This batch of questions deals with which program works best in different circumstances.

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As promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This batch of answers are about mileage valuation – what are those miles really worth and when should we burn miles as opposed to earning them?

Read More…

As promised, I am answering some of Wendy Perrin’s readers’ frequent flyer questions. This batch of answers are about mileage devaluation.

Read More…

My calendar has reminders for when I need to book upgrade requests for those airlines which have a window to lodge them (eg Qantas).  Other airlines are simpler in that you can request an upgrade as soon as you have ticketed the flight, although in some cases there is still a window when they are considered as opposed to clearing immediately (eg Air New Zealand).

Which method gets the best results depends on the circumstances of the traveller – a restrictive window is generally better for high status elite passengers since this means they have a shot of upgrades clearing even for travel booked at short notice.  A longer window or immediate processing is better for others as, on lightly loaded flights booked well in advance, it reduces or eliminates the gamble on whether an upgrade will clear or not.

How does your airline deal with supported upgrades, and what do you like or dislike about their system?

Last year Wendy Perrin asked her Perrin Post readers for their frequent flyer questions. 10 lucky readers won tickets to a preview of the Up in the Air movie starring George Clooney and got their questions answered by Randy Petersen, frequent flyer guru, with some help from others at Flyer Talk.

However, there were over 100 other great frequent flyer questions about programs, miles and status. There are some common themes to many questions and also some unique or quirky questions. With Wendy’s permission, I’ll be answering many of these questions over the coming weeks.

An update to my recent post on frequent flyer mileage expiry policies.  Virgin America elevate has changed from miles expiring 18 months after earning to 18 months after last activity. While this is a welcome improvement and now matches some other frequent flyer programs such as American AAdvantage and United Mileage Plus, it is not particularly generous.

A beef which many members of American’s AAdvantage and British Airways’ Executive Club have long held is the restriction on earning and redeeming miles on each others flights between USA and UK. Ie AAdvantage members cannot earn or redeem on BA flights between USA and UK, and nor can Executive Club members earn or redeem on AA flights between USA and UK.

The restrictions are one step closer to being removed (in the future) with US Department of Trade’s announcement that it intends to approve the requested Anti Trust Immunity for Oneworld airlines (source BBC news).  Very limited restrictions are included in the announcement of the decision, which also opens the way for a proposed joint venture between American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia.

Naturally Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson isn’t happy.

Despite recently outlining the mileage expiry policies for many frequent flyer programs, I’ve just lost a few thousand miles from 2 different programs.

I had a small balance of Singapore Airlines Kris Flyer miles from several Silk Air flights which cannot credit to any Star Alliance program and also some miscredited miles when the PPS double dip hasn’t worked properly with amounts too small to chase up a reversal. Thanks to the helpful upcoming expiry tables provided I have known for some time these miles were about to expire. I don’t have enough for any award, and no matter how I looked at topping up the account I could always find more value in crediting to another program instead. So most of my balance has gone. I still have a small residual amount from a recent Silk Air flight.

Emirates Skywards is even more user friendly about mileage expiry in that you can send yourself a reminder alert on a date of your choosing, and like an alarm can then snooze and send a new reminder on another date of your choosing. I’d previously cashed out most of my accumulated miles but had a small balance some of which was due to expire at the end of January. As with Kris Flyer, to avoid the expiry I’d need to add more points to redeem any award. Since Emirates significantly devalued their program the opportunity cost of the extra points was worth more than the value of any reasonably attainable awards. So I let those miles expire also.

Combining the mileage expiries with little travel, my net frequent flyer mileage accrual for the year to 1 February is the lowest it has been in many years.

In my email inbox today was the latest in a long history of badly targetted offers from Lufthansa Miles & More.

The email included as “selected offer for your mileage balance” the Silver Promotion. Frequent Traveller status (Star Alliance Silver) can be earned by taking 30 paid flights on Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, LOT, Adria, Croatia, Brussels, Air Dolomiti or Luxair by 31 December.

This is wrong for me on a few levels.

1. As referred to at the start of the email I have a higher elite status.
2. Not only that but I’ve already requalified to 2013.
3. Since I’m not based in Europe, 30 flights on those airlines would be more than enough to qualify for Senator, not Frequent Traveller status.

An example of a previous promotional mis-step by Miles and More include offers of 10k bonus miles if I make 3 intercontinental round trips in first class on Lufthansa within 6 weeks. That bonus was paltry compared with the cost of achieving it and the huge amount of miles that would already be earned (rate of 325% times mileage).

Still, it is better than Virgin Blue Velocity Rewards, which offered gold status only to rescind the offer.