BMI Futures Week: So what happens if IAG gets the nod?

With BMI futures week, I’m now going off into the wild possibilities of what might happen. This is based on the following:

• Gut feeling
• Prescience and things that have happened before.

What we know:

• IAG Group is the preferred buyer for British Midland Airways, although Virgin  is making its usual noises.
• There’s about zero  chance of being migrated to Miles and More and having miles matches and status matched.
• Upon completion of the transaction, British Midland International will exit Star Alliance.

What We Don’t know But Here’s A Darn Good Guess

Status Matching

It could go one of two ways if BA matches BMI Status:

In an ideal world:

BMI Gold  (Star Alliance Gold) will  net BA Gold (OneWorld Emerald)
BMI Silver(Star Alliance Silver) will net BA Silver (One World Sapphire)

However, I really have doubts over this match as BMI Gold is a doddle to get if you put your mind to it (57k in the first year, 38k subsequent years) compared to the amount of spend/tier points needed to get to OneWorld Emerald. What could be more likely is:

BMI Gold (Star Alliance Gold) will net BA Silver (One World Sapphire)
BMI Silver(Star Alliance Silver) will net BA Silver (One World Ruby)

Points/Miles

My gut feeling is this – if we get a 1:1 match on BMI Destination Miles to Avios, we’d be doing very well. My doubts that a direct 1:1 match come from the ease it is to get BMI miles as well as the value of them compared to Avios (although Avios will be doing themselves no favours with the February Clubcard exchange offer).  In the worst case, I’m thinking 2:1 is more likely.

The worst they could do is enact Section 9.1 of the Diamond Club membership rules, and give us 3 months to burn off the remainder of our miles, and clear the “mile” liability completely.

Routes

Expect consolidation on routes that are duplicated. Sending both an ex BMI Bird and a BA Bird in the same direction is bananas.

I’d also expect some of the the Domestic programme to be curtailed where duplicate routes and times exist – however some routes will be kept as “slot sitters” at Heathrow for a while I’d suspect too.

Of course with these freed slots, BA could deploy more new services…

When?

That is $64,000/£41,364.55 question. And again, I don’t know.

The timetable is to be completed by the end of  30th March 2012 subject to regulatory clearance.

Not to ring any alarm bells, note that this could in theory happen before that date if regulatory clearance has been granted. For me, it has affected my forward booking cycle as I’m due to be in the Windy City sooner rather than later – and with what I carry with me, the elite status is not a nicety – it’s a requirement (or I can add £200 onto my fare without thinking about it). Therefore, I’ll be falling back on my Lufthansa Senator status for a bit for my journeys. Not ideal, but better than nothing (or dread the thought – throwing away 8000 miles or so).

These are from my observations and views. And it could be worse (for example, BMI members could have the programme shut down and left to fend for themselves). I don’t belive that will happen due to the PR stink it would cause. However, I would urge caution of the upmost over the next few months until the transaction is competle.

Because I’ll write tomorrow about the threat of Virgin, and the scenario that could bring if by some magic means, Virgin got their wish and brought BMI from under IAG.