For those of you signed up with BMI Diamond Club as your Star Alliance Frequent flier programme, there are some BIG changes as of today.
Lets go through them…
The end of the Gold Upgrade Voucher (GUV’s) – These paper based vouchers could be used to upgrade a ticket from Economy to Premium or Business dependant on routes. These have been replaced with Complimentary Upgrade Vouchers, held Electronically. All Gold Members get 4 of them a year.
For those of you selling GUV’s on eBay or have brought some – congratulations – they’re worth NOTHING as of today. They are not convertible into CUV’s.
Household Accounts
A common complaint and/or feature is to pool miles from different accounts for rewards. Well as of 1st Decemember, you can pool up to 8 family members (2 of which can be employed by you) to into a household account to spend mile.
Now considering the bargains that are available as Diamond Club rewards, this is one hell of a enhancement. The ability to pool miles for family trips or couple trips will be very good for the wallet and mileage balances if you’re short on one account, but overfilling on the other.
Miles for Upgrade (MFU)
Yes – It’s arrived (after plenty of moans from me), it’s now possible to MFU your fares one way route, allowing you to upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy or Business!
IF your ticket is in Y, S, O, B, U, L buckets (again, mid to high economy tickets), you’ll be able to use miles to upgrade tickets.
MFU’s available from 5k for a short up, with up to 25k for a hop to Cairo from London, with miles earned on the original ticket bucket.
New Frequent Flyer Cards
Yes – it’s time for a new design. Notice anything about which airline it is?
Correct. Nice and generic. Almost… HON Circle looking.
It seems there are some positive enhancements to the BMI Diamond Club programme – the loss of GUV’s is a fact of life alas, and put that ride to an end, but there are some very bright spots to the programme.
Now lets hope the airline can survive the next few years…
