bmi diamond club - BMI DC Do Not Honour Gold For Life

Hello all,

I'd like to compare notes with others on the situation where DC are point blankedly refusing to follow through on their 10 year gold = lifetime gold DC status.

Despite communicating for several weeks with DC - and being passed from one person to another within DC, the last person I spoke with confirmed 'we have to abide by BA's rules'.

No acknowledgement of customer loyalty over the years, no offer of alternatives, just close the shutters down. This status is being closed to the customers who showed most loyalty to BMI and DC, and not to have even been listened to shows the way they mean to go on.

Has anyone else asked about them losing Gold for life and what is the status of your inquiry? I'd love to know how many people are affected and see if we mobilise some broader class action? What do you all say....

This was kind of expected, no, since BA don't offer life membership? At least you've got 2 year's gold plus 1 year silver. This is 3 years' more status than you would have if BMI went bust, which was the other alternative...

You have totally missed the point.

It was not Gold status for all of YOUR life.

It was Gold status for all of BMI's life.

And BMI's life is now over.

Expected or no, I'm just seeking to identify the numbers of others in the same situation. 2 years gold v lifetime gold, you do the maths...

Martin007 I think somebody pointed this out to you in a previous thread. These were the terms & conditions which governed the DC scheme while it was up and running. It's been closed down and no longer exists. BA are actually doing you a favour (believe it or not) by matching you to BAEC gold.


9. Length of programme

1. In the event that the Diamond Club programme should be closed, bmi shall use every reasonable endeavour to publicise at least three months’ notice of the closure of the Diamond Club programme. At the end of that period members shall no longer be able to earn Destinations Miles or Membership Status Miles, redeem Destinations Miles or utilise Membership Status Miles nor shall the member be entitled to any benefits under the Diamond Club programme other than flights or other services already redeemed but not yet utilised prior to the end of such period.

11. Termination

2. bmi reserves the right in its absolute discretion, and upon giving reasonable notice, to terminate Diamond Club membership in part should Diamond Club cease to exist in any relevant geographic market.

12. Variation

1. bmi expressly reserves the right in its absolute discretion to withdraw, cancel, vary in any way or change at any time without notice any service or benefit previously offered or expressed or provided to Diamond Club members, or the Terms & Conditions upon which the same are so offered or provided and will not be liable for any resulting loss or damage howsoever occasioned.
2. bmi may in its absolute discretion vary or change the Terms & Conditions of membership at any time and will use its reasonable endeavours to give you notice thereof. You will be deemed to have accepted any change or variation if you retain your Card after such notice has been given.

I don't think you'll get very far with a class action and you should drop it (did you even manage to get lifetime gold, or did your expiry date cut your race short)?

All bmi golds are now golds for life... of the programme as no ones status is being downgraded at the end of their membership year.

Unfortunately when a scheme closes then there's nothing you can do.

BA didn't have to give anyone anything, they understood that it was good business to match status and allow us to move our miles over. Unfortunately they don't have a lifetime gold in their scheme so they couldn't match any more in that tier.

If enough lifetime golds are unhappy then they might offer something extra as a surprise gift but there's been no evidence of that happening and if they do then it's certainly more than they have to do.

Just look at it in a more positive light. bmi were performing very poor financially, Lufthansa didn't seem to have the will to turn them around and make them viable. Virgin weren't putting their money where their mouth is and even if Virgin had taken over and given all lifetime golds lifetime status in their scheme they don't have the route network of BA or the alliance to fill the gaps. So if BA hadn't taken over then bmi may have been wound up and you'd have ended up with nothing.

I'm not totally pleased with the way BA have handled this but the way they've handled it is better than most expected and as BA Silver is similar in benefits to *G then a lot of people have done quite well out of this.

Seriously I can understand your frustration as I made Lifetime Gold this year , yep bummer :td:

We all knew the deal and Im just happy to have been given 3 years BA Status and will make the most of it . My number one Alliance will always be Star and I have sorted that status out for a good number of years but last year I knew I wouldnt get lifetime . So you can imagine the dissapointment but you need to move on . Getting yourself stressed will not change anything .

Take the BA Gold enjoy the F class lounges for 18-24 months and then get a soft landing to Silver ( unless you make BA Gold again ) . See it as an opportunity to try something new.

Got to agree with the others on this..you're on a futile mission

What exactly is the issue?

Your Diamond Club Gold status is indeed valid for the rest of your life and you will be able to use it to claim benefits on all remaining BMI flights in eternity.

Hello all,

I'd like to compare notes with others on the situation where DC are point blankedly refusing to follow through on their 10 year gold = lifetime gold DC status.

Despite communicating for several weeks with DC - and being passed from one person to another within DC, the last person I spoke with confirmed 'we have to abide by BA's rules'.

No acknowledgement of customer loyalty over the years, no offer of alternatives, just close the shutters down. This status is being closed to the customers who showed most loyalty to BMI and DC, and not to have even been listened to shows the way they mean to go on.

Has anyone else asked about them losing Gold for life and what is the status of your inquiry? I'd love to know how many people are affected and see if we mobilise some broader class action? What do you all say....


Were you really Lifetime Gold as in April you posted :confused:


Now IAG has completed their takeover of BMI and confirmed the date DC will leave the *A, I have been denied the opportunity for lifetime gold - two years short.

Any suggestions?

You have totally missed the point.

It was not Gold status for all of YOUR life.

It was Gold status for all of BMI's life.

And BMI's life is now over.
Exactly.

BA used to have invitational Gold for life, too, until it reneged on that arrangement some years ago. Since protests at the abolition of lifetime status on an ongoing airline were unsuccessful, I would think efforts to keep lifetime status in a defunct airline are doomed to failure.

Lots of us in the same boat, btw. Could be worse: we could have lost all our miles and status.

Disappointing but as others have noted, bankruptcy could have seen everything go up in a big puff of smoke- mile, status not to mention every single job.

BA used to have invitational Gold for life, too, until it reneged on that arrangement some years ago. Since protests at the abolition of lifetime status on an ongoing airline were unsuccessful, I would think efforts to keep lifetime status in a defunct airline are doomed to failure.

Did they do anything to make up for removing the lifetime benefit? Seems a way to really annoy who should be your best customers needlessly.

Did they do anything to make up for removing the lifetime benefit? Seems a way to really annoy who should be your best customers needlessly.

What's the issue - you've got free BA Gold. If you fly BA enough in the next year you'll get Gold + the additional perks at higher Tier Points. You'll be a good customer of BA and get rewarded.

If you not a good BA customer, you'll start with Gold and gradually fall down through the ranks of the Exec Club and end up with nothing.

Looks like BA have done the right thing - after all they could have given BD Golds BA Silver Cards, which is really the equivalent level. Think yourself lucky that you're getting in the Flounge and aren't left in the gutter with no miles and no status earned on an bankrupt airline.

As others have said, bmi havent taken away their lifetime gold - it's just not worth very much now ;)

What's the issue - you've got free BA Gold. If you fly BA enough in the next year you'll get Gold + the additional perks at higher Tier Points. You'll be a good customer of BA and get rewarded.

If you not a good BA customer, you'll start with Gold and gradually fall down through the ranks of the Exec Club and end up with nothing.

Looks like BA have done the right thing - after all they could have given BD Golds BA Silver Cards, which is really the equivalent level. Think yourself lucky that you're getting in the Flounge and aren't left in the gutter with no miles and no status earned on an bankrupt airline.

I was referring to the post that said BA did give out lifetime gold on an invitation basis many years ago and then pulled it.

I can understand BA not honouring bmi lifetime gold as they don't have any moral or legal obligation to do so as I've said earlier in this thread.

But I was surprised when ajamieson said BA had let down their own lifetime golds in the past - on the face of it I'd say that's just generating bad will.

What's the full story behind that anyway?

Has anyone else asked about them losing Gold for life and what is the status of your inquiry?

You haven't lost your BD DC lifetime gold status. Actually everybody who is DC Gold now has lifetime Gold status. Of course "lifetime" means "lifetime of member or FFP, whichever ends earlier"

What's the full story behind that anyway?
I seem to recall it was an unadvertised, honorific perk offered to some CIPs, former BA board members, employees with distinguished service etc, long-time Executive Club golds etc. BA withdrew the promise of lifetime elite status (it may have been silver, rather than gold, I can't remember) a couple of years ago, saying that the offer was financially unsustainable. Some of these people hadn't put any real money in the till for years. I think it was around the same time that the Executive Club treatment of super-elites (Premier?) was streamlined, so part of a wider effort to be more commercially-minded. I understand where BA is coming from tbh...

It was lifetime Silver and was pulled about 8-10 years ago. Times are tough, not commercially viable etc.

The culling of Prems was separate and initiated after Willie joined. Some excellent stories about how it happened and the reactions. :D

Now IAG has completed their takeover of BMI and confirmed the date DC will leave the *A, I have been denied the opportunity for lifetime gold - two years short.


You make it sound like they're still part of *A! :D

You make it sound like they're still part of *A! :D

xcalx was quoting the OPs post from April

OP never had lifetime gold by the sounds of it...not sure what they are trying to achieve

I seem to recall it was an unadvertised, honorific perk offered to some CIPs, former BA board members, employees with distinguished service etc, long-time Executive Club golds etc. BA withdrew the promise of lifetime elite status (it may have been silver, rather than gold, I can't remember) a couple of years ago, saying that the offer was financially unsustainable. Some of these people hadn't put any real money in the till for years. I think it was around the same time that the Executive Club treatment of super-elites (Premier?) was streamlined, so part of a wider effort to be more commercially-minded. I understand where BA is coming from tbh...

What I would have done in this circumstance was just redefine silver - make silver more like the BD offering (so you'd get lounge access only when flying your own airline and limited to lounges operated by the airline), then rename the current silver as gold and gold as platinum. This would mean that their lifetime silvers could only get benefits when flying BA and only have access to BA operated lounges.

FWIW, I understand that the current number of DC lifetime golds is in the low hundreds.

And a small, but significant percentage of that number participate right here. :eek:

And BMI's life is now over.

Exactly.


These were the terms & conditions which governed the DC scheme while it was up and running. It's been closed down and no longer exists.

I haven't really been following much of the DC forum for about a month, then come across this thread. Can someone please point out where the big announcement was that DC has already closed? Last I heard DC did not announce any closing date, and was basically guaranteeing that it would be around until at least Autumn, based on the announcements when they left *A. Now, without any new thread, or even a post in the "Official Information" thread, I see well-respected members of this forum claiming it has already closed down. I really don't have time to read through the 800+ posts in the main sticky. So can someone please point out where the crux of this announcement was made? Or did I wake up this morning and suddenly everyone who speaks English has decided that English words mean something different today? I was really hoping to be able to sign up for BA and transfer a still huge chunk of miles there, but from the sounds of it, I missed something and now all is lost.

Now if I haven't missed anything, nor missed the memo that the world was changing the meaning of some basic words in the English language, thus meaning DC did not close, then maybe people really need to be more careful in what they post, and the moderators can delete the total misinformation in these posts. Nothing like giving me a shock and telling me I just lost a million miles.

Moderators don't delete mis-information. They simply enforce the ToS.

BA is in Skyteam.

See. :D

DC is still running; there is no closing date (but I'll wager there will be a date available next Tuesday); however, the services offered by DC are being eroded very quickly right now, and I can tell you the staff at Donington Hall is being let go at a rate of knots, so getting anything irregular done is becoming increasingly difficult.

I would expect DC to close towards the end of October when the Ventura contract is up for renewal. So next Tuesday would sound about right to give sufficient notice ;)

xcalx was quoting the OPs post from April


True, but the point I commented on was written in June, long after the *A exit!

I would expect DC to close towards the end of October when the Ventura contract is up for renewal. So next Tuesday would sound about right to give sufficient notice ;)

Which I think I'd settle for - my nominal year-end is 27th October. Okay, so I'm now gold-for-life thanks to the no-downgrade policy, but I can take out a BAEC membership on 9th October, apply for the match, and get the maximum time with status that I could ever have hoped for.

Not that I really intend flying BA that much and so will slip down the ladder pretty quickly, but Gold will be very handy for my MEL-SYD internal leg in Y with QF in the middle of my last DC redemption in January :)

Isn't the sold bmi regional entity expected to takeover flybmi.com and also the Diamond Club? So, maybe you'll still be a Lifetime Gold member of Diamond Club - it just doesn't get you as much as it used to.

No. It's not expected to do so. It is expected to rebrand.

Isn't the sold bmi regional entity expected to takeover flybmi.com and also the Diamond Club? So, maybe you'll still be a Lifetime Gold member of Diamond Club - it just doesn't get you as much as it used to.

At the time of the sale it was said they got the rights to the bmi brand and flybmi.com but then after the sale completed in June it was said that they be using flybmi.com for the summer schedule and then moving to their own website.

So I'm not sure what is actually the case. Are they allowed to keep the bmi brand and diamond club after that date.

OP never had lifetime gold by the sounds of it...not sure what they are trying to achieve

I do.....it's politely called poo stirring. :D

I would expect DC to close towards the end of October when the Ventura contract is up for renewal. So next Tuesday would sound about right to give sufficient notice ;)
In which case I will miss my lifetime gold as my year is Nov- Nov and I was hoping to be a lifetime gold for at least a few days of my life...

In which case I will miss my lifetime gold as my year is Nov- Nov and I was hoping to be a lifetime gold for at least a few days of my life...

Good news - you are lifetime gold, following the announcement by bmi that there will be no further status reductions :D

Now, without any new thread, or even a post in the "Official Information" thread, I see well-respected members of this forum claiming it has already closed down.
Not sure who you're referring to, or why your very bizarre post is quoting me.

And what has the English language got to do with it?

:confused:

Not sure who you're referring to, or why your very bizarre post is quoting me.

And what has the English language got to do with it?

:confused:

Raffles made a short post, with the line, "And BMI's life is now over." at the end. You replied to his post, quoting him along with that line, and starting out saying, "Exactly." BMI's life is not now over. It looks like it is over soon, and many have already finished their relationship with BMI, but it presently is not over. Raffles' post was misinformation, and you agreed with him via your "exactly" comment. Between those two posts, NeverFirst stated that DC has been closed down and no longer exists.

Nobody that I saw challenged any of those statements. While I haven't seen many posts by NeverFirst, obviously you and Raffles are quite active here and I believe well respected members. Being I haven't been really reading this forum over the past month, I was quite shocked to see this talk of BMI/DC already being shut down. But without some new thread or official announcement, I also had my doubts this was correct. Thus my tongue-in-cheek comments about the English language perhaps meaning something different all of a sudden.

Raffles' post was misinformation.
No, it wasn't.

What does the OP Intend to do if they did retain Lifetime Gold:

No BMI Lounges to use

No Star Alliance Membership

No BMI Aircraft

No BMI seats to pe-book

No BMI Flights to Upgrade

:confused:

.
No, it wasn't.

Then tell me, when did BMI close down? Why are there still so many posts in this forum titled, "bmi diamond club"? Why is there still a BMI website? Why are you still able to apparently book tickets on BMI? Why is my DC account still active? As I said before, it appears that although we're evidently communicating in English, there's a different version of English out there that I do not understand.

The phrase "And BMI's life is now over." obviously has a completely different meaning to you and others than it has to me. As far as I'm concerned, it is a completely false statement, and thus misinformation.

As I said before, it appears that although we're evidently communicating in English, there's a different version of English out there that I do not understand.It's a characteristic of the English language that it's very context-specific. You cannot extract meaning out of single words like a robot trying to translate by using a dictionary. You can't read Raffles' single sentence in isolation. You must read it in the context of the entire post in which it was contained, and also in the context of both the posts to which it was replying.

If you do that properly, you will see that the word "life" was not being used by Raffles in the mechanical and technical way in which you have been reading it.

Does that help to explain the difference in view?

It's a characteristic of the English language that it's very context-specific. You cannot extract meaning out of single words like a robot trying to translate by using a dictionary. You can't read Raffles' single sentence in isolation. You must read it in the context of the entire post in which it was contained, and also in the context of both the posts to which it was replying.

If you do that properly, you will see that the word "life" was not being used by Raffles in the mechanical and technical way in which you have been reading it.

Does that help to explain the difference in view?

Sorry, I guess I'm just stupid and cannot see it. Reading all of Raffles' post:
You have totally missed the point.

It was not Gold status for all of YOUR life.

It was Gold status for all of BMI's life.

And BMI's life is now over.

Still I cannot see how the context of that post or of the preceding two posts in the thread change the meaning any. BMI gold status is still valid. BMI is still in business. Lifetime gold status is still listed in the DC T&C's. The only thing that has changed is that BMI is no longer a member of *A, and it looks like BMI will go away in the future, though AFAIK, no firm date has yet been set. So BMI and any BMI gold status likely have a very limited life, but by no means is it now over.

BMI is still in business. Lifetime gold status is still listed in the DC T&C's. The only thing that has changed is that BMI is no longer a member of *A, and it looks like BMI will go away in the future, though AFAIK, no firm date has yet been set. So BMI and any BMI gold status likely have a very limited life, but by no means is it now over.If an 85-year old person was lying in a hospital bed, terminally ill, unable to walk and barely able to talk, it would not be an unreasonable use of the English language to say that "their life is now over", even if they might technically not yet be dead. This is an example of the flexibility with which language is used in real life, when understood in context, even if may not be pedantically precise.

That's a reasonable analogy for the state that BD is now in. There are now few BD routes left. It will be only a matter of a handful of months (and perhaps only a few weeks) before BD is no longer in business on its own account. It might limp on for a few more weeks after that as a vehicle by which BA services are technically operated, but only until all the BD assets can be brought over onto the BA AOC. I think it would surprise many of us if BD were still in existence on 28 October 2012, the start of the northern winter season.

Indeed, your suggestion that "the only thing that has changed is that BMI is no longer a member of *A, and it looks like BMI will go away in the future" would be the understatement of the year. BD has pretty much gone away already.

Sorry, I guess I'm just stupid and cannot see it. Reading all of Raffles' post:


Still I cannot see how the context of that post or of the preceding two posts in the thread change the meaning any. BMI gold status is still valid. BMI is still in business. Lifetime gold status is still listed in the DC T&C's. The only thing that has changed is that BMI is no longer a member of *A, and it looks like BMI will go away in the future, though AFAIK, no firm date has yet been set. So BMI and any BMI gold status likely have a very limited life, but by no means is it now over.

You are just being far too literal in your reading of things. Diamond Club may exist as a program, but it is pretty much about to be put to bed as a program.

There is a timetable for the departure of bmi - it will be gone by the winter timetable. Planes are being re-painted and changed to BA spec (A319s, then A320s and A321s) routes moved to BA etc - the process is well under way for the closing of flight operations.

There is no official closing date for Diamond Club, but that is mainly due to it staying open to administer the last days of limited earning and burning in the program. Once bmi ops end, it will be a shell of a program and the concensus from those with a bit of knowledge either at bmi or BA is that the program will be wound down in the Autumn. A shell of it may remain open to administer the last months of booked redemptions, but with earning and burning options continuing to be cut, very little functionality is expected to be there come the end of the year.

There is a tiny chance, I suppose, that BMI Regional may take on Diamond Club as its reward programme and an even smaller chance they may give you lifetime gold. You would therefore have no complaints - the only remaining entity with BMI in its name would have given you Gold status. It just wouldn't be much use unless you fly around the regions in jungle jets.

Ok, this section of the thread is now over. And that's the literal usage. ;)

Let's get back to trying to launch pointless class-action lawsuits, shall we?

GoldCircle
bmi forum Mod team