MilesBuzz! - Continental Onepass or BMI Diamond Club?

I have been a member of both schemes for many years but, now Continental has joined Star Alliance, I'm not sure which scheme is the best to accrue my points on in future when flying with Star Alliance carriers, Continental Onepass or BMI Diamond Club? I have rewards available on both cards but, for future points, I guess I should just choose one scheme to accrue future points on. Has anyone compared the schemes already and come to a conclusion? Thanks in advance for any helpful advice given.

Welcome to FT getonplane

One question to consider is what are you looking to gain out of miles?

Are you more interested in earning status? In which case see BBomber's charts *A charts comparing programmes at http://members.shaw.ca/deercroft/starall.html Or are you interested in collecting miles to redeem? In which case bmi have one way awards and cash and miles. Other factors to consider are actual routes/classes you might travel; any need for upgrade tools or household accounts etc.

Travel patterns and personal priorities will influence which FFP is best for you.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Where do you live and on which carrier do you fly more frequently? That will likely answer the question for you.

BD credits great for premium cabin fares and has other nice benefits like cash+miles and one-way rewards. They also have family accounts now (announced this morning). CO has the EUA scheme and pretty good rules in terms of routings and flexibility on rewards, especially RTWs.

Faced with a similar choice a while back, I picked BD in part because it's easier to maintain *A Gold status and in part because, at least at the time, *A status on U.S. carriers didn't provide lounge access on domestic US travel whereas the same level with a non-US carrier would.

One concern with BD today is that, since LH now controls it, the future of DC (to say nothing of the future of BD) is up in the air. Those who feel the worst-case result is LH Senator for BD Gold, with enough notice to earn status somewhere else if need be, aren't too concerned about this. Others, who fear that LH might not be this generous, are more worried. Personally, despite a few issues with getting the Indian call center (centre) to find award flights, I'll stick with BD for now and see what happens - if anything.

You should do what I did and keep your BD Gold and status Match to GOLD.

Therefore eligible for domestic US upgrades whilst crediting the miles to BD.

Depends on your travel patterns and desired awards.

If your paid travel is domestic US you'd probably want CO for the free upgrades (or UA for E+ if they had convenient routes).

If your goal is C/F international award travel, BD may be the better choice as the awards are cheaper (though CO presumabely will have the same access to *A awards).

If you are looking to use miles for international upgrades, you would probably avoid CO which requires high co-pays.