MSE News: BMI frequent flyers must transfer points to BA

Raffles99

You cannot redeem for Eurostar tickets via Diamond Club directly, you need to go around the houses into avios.com.

What you can still do until October 27th is use your BMI miles for redemption tickets on Qatar Airways, Jet (India) or Transaero (Russia). This won't be possible once you have transferred your miles to BA.

I would strongly recommend anyone who has not got the BMI credit card but does collect Avios to do so. It's a no-brainer - no minimum income requirement, only £250 spend required to trigger the bonus. Get one for your partner if you have one yourself!

This article from my blog gives some more details: http://headforpoints.com/2012/09/29/bmi-diamond-club-and-now-finally-the-end-is-near/

If you collect BAA WorldPoints, you also have to make a decision on what to do with those as I explain here - http://headforpoints.com/2012/10/01/should-you-transfer-your-baa-worldpoints-now/

rustyjames

I'm going to transfer them anyway to be on the safe side, but I still don't understand the scary "they'll soon be worthless" bit of the headline.

From the email I received, the T&C's, and the BA FAQ, as far as I can tell they can still be converted to avios after that date, especially if you are a UK member.

Arbroath_Annie

I've been trying to convert points from bmi Diamond Club to Avios with BA's Executive Club several times today. After logging in with BA and following all the steps it immediately says "session timed out". The phone number for customer help doesn't go through, just the message " the person has hung up". Anyone else succeeding or with suggestions? Are they suddenly just overwhelmed or am I missing something?

flyforfun

rustyjames wrote: »

I'm going to transfer them anyway to be on the safe side, but I still don't understand the scary "they'll soon be worthless" bit of the headline.

From the email I received, the T&C's, and the BA FAQ, as far as I can tell they can still be converted to avios after that date, especially if you are a UK member.

Correct. Anyone with the Credit Card will continue to earn points to BMI. They will then have to transfer them to Avios - definately the BA scheme, not sure about the Avios, Avios scheme but if you wanted them there you'd just transfer them twice!

flyforfun

Arbroath_Annie wrote: »

I've been trying to convert points from bmi Diamond Club to Avios with BA's Executive Club several times today. After logging in with BA and following all the steps it immediately says "session timed out". The phone number for customer help doesn't go through, just the message " the person has hung up". Anyone else succeeding or with suggestions? Are they suddenly just overwhelmed or am I missing something?

Try again tomorrow. I did mine yesterday and it worked first time and quickly. Maybe the false "worthless" headline here started a panic amongst MSE members!!! :rotfl:

anandp

Raffles99 wrote: »

You cannot redeem for Eurostar tickets via Diamond Club directly, you need to go around the houses into avios.com.

What you can still do until October 27th is use your BMI miles for redemption tickets on Qatar Airways, Jet (India) or Transaero (Russia). This won't be possible once you have transferred your miles to BA.

I would strongly recommend anyone who has not got the BMI credit card but does collect Avios to do so. It's a no-brainer - no minimum income requirement, only £250 spend required to trigger the bonus. Get one for your partner if you have one yourself!

This article from my blog gives some more details: http://headforpoints.com/2012/09/29/bmi-diamond-club-and-now-finally-the-end-is-near/

If you collect BAA WorldPoints, you also have to make a decision on what to do with those as I explain here - http://headforpoints.com/2012/10/01/should-you-transfer-your-baa-worldpoints-now/

What is a redemption ticket?

anandp

Ok so following the article and the forum comments, I'm even more confused.

The only bit that is clear to me at the moment is that with a BMI credit card, Diamond Club points can still be earned but need to be transferred to Avios to spend them.

What I'm not at all clear about is what happens to destination miles in the Diamond account if not used or transferred by 27th Oct?

Caz3121

anandp wrote: »

Ok so following the article and the forum comments, I'm even more confused.

The only bit that is clear to me at the moment is that with a BMI credit card, Diamond Club points can still be earned but need to be transferred to Avios to spend them.

What I'm not at all clear about is what happens to destination miles in the Diamond account if not used or transferred by 27th Oct?

this may help http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-diamond-club/1392250-diamond-club-wound-up-28-oct-except-mbna-diamondclub-org-created-discussion.html

Blue_Max

I applied for a bmi plus Credit Card by mistake. Did not realise that it has annual fee. Application was approved. But I cancelled it before receiving the card. But they did send me a Diamond Club memebership number.
I have just applied for an ordinary BMI Credit Card. Terms say that 20,000 miles bonus is for new customers only.
Will I be considered as a new customer?

If I do get accepted, do I have to buy anything more (apart from the the £250 qualifying spend) to use the 20,000 miles when booking a flight?
In other words, will a return flight be free as long as it is under 20,000 miles?

Thanks!

Doc_N

For anyone struggling (as I was) to convert their 20,000 BMI miles to Avios:

1 You need to set up a BA Executive Club account into which you move the miles. It will only be a Blue membership, but that's not a problem - they still convert on a one for one basis.

2 Theoretically, you can then move the miles via the BMI website - it will link through to the BA website and ask you for BA login details.

3 Frequently, however, that will not work. There are major problems with the websites and frequent apparently meaningless error messages. The problems are sometimes caused by a mismatch between the dates of birth recorded in the BMI and BA accounts, so you might want to check that.

4 If all else fails (as it may well do!) call this number:

0800 4080009 (BA Executive Club)

They can do the transfer for you manually, and I found them incredibly helpful.