bmi diamond club - Where to go? Best routing for miles spend?

hi everyone, have got 82500 DC miles and want to do something special for me and the 'other half', maybe Business or 1st return somewhere.

any suggestions on the best deals to spend on (I dont mind Miles+Cash to achieve this).

thanks for all your forthcoming suggestions.

cheers, Gordie

I think you have to offer at least a nugget of insight here with regard to time & date :)

There's good availability on the LH privatair flight from FRA to Dubai right now, but it's 40C in Dubai so probably not much of a destination!

but it's 40C in Dubai so probably not much of a destination!
Depends on whether or not you can stand the heat. I was in Egypt recently when it was about 44 degrees - meant things were less crowded and quite pleasant.

thanks,

I am looking for a trip around Feb 2009 to cover over Valentines day ideally and dont mind up to 40c temperatures.

cheers, Gordie

LH business class to Dubai has seats, Feb 12-17.

If you want warm and a long weekend that's probably good. Couldn't see anything to S. Africa...

Tony

thanks Swiss Tony,

I believe that Swiss do a better deal than LH on awards tickets?

Anything suitable that I can do on Swiss, dont mind stopovers etc? I could possibly add another 30000 miles to my total as my old man wants to give me them as a gift if I can use them.

thanks again everyone, Gordie

I could possibly add another 30000 miles to my total as my old man wants to give me them as a gift if I can use them.
While your old man can make a booking in your name using his miles, he cannot simply gift them to you.
You could do it by booking one ways, and getting your dad to book one of the legs with his miles...

The old man's 30k is good enough for one C&M Z1/Z7 one way award in C. So if you bought 7.5k miles to add to your 82.5k, you'd have enough for two people to do a mutli-centre SE Asia trip.

Book as one ways and you could have two stopovers, so you could go to Bali or some other island with a stop each way in SIN, BKK etc. You can also use your stopover points as gateways to cheap tickets to other islands if you want more beach than city.

With your 80K odd miles both of you, using miles and cash, can travel business class to a heap of interesting long haul destinations (zones 3, 4 and 10) All the major US cities, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, a whole load of Caribbean islands, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, India, Nepal plus the zone five mid haul destinations such as Israel, Morocco, Syria, Oman and others mentioned above. Plenty of choice and with cash and miles fantastic value.

It all depends on where you want to go and what your into.

A great trip could be to Las Vegas, fly out either Air New Zealand, even go via FRA and fly Singapore to New York, a couple of nights there, and then onto Vegas, and then onto San Fran...that would be a great trip. Like I said, Singapore to NYC, and then Air New Zealand back, all in business, all good with miles and cash.

Or, as others have said, hit up Brazil and South America. TAP business out is great, did it in Jan this year, a week there, then business all the way to Argentinia and Lufthansa back (Dont go first with them)....again, another fantastic trip.

OR...hit up Asia. Singapore out in business, few days there, then onto anywhere really, Thailand, Hong Kong...if you were to do that, Air New Zealand back.

Loads of options for you, loads of great airlines. What are your interests and how long do you want to go? With everyones experence on here, we could plan a trip for you that you wouldnt forget!! ^

thanks everyone. My dad is going to 'gift me' 30k miles by paying for them. Having flown SQ before in Raffles I know how excellent their service is.

My options seem to be pretty huge and a trip to KL and then Bali and then a paid for down and back to Oz seems a possibility. I assume that one ways is the best to do if we wanted to do something like this?

I really believe that we are going to get slaughtered soon on rewards bookings thanks to fuel surcharges and I can see mileage requirements going up like they have just done on Air France.

Bearing all you kind guys have said I think a trip to Mexico/Peru/Brazil has got to be considered and SQ to the East coast of USA sounds excellent.

I really fancy seeing Machu Pichu and Rio de Janeiro and dont mind avoiding Cancun as it gets a bit hot. So, maybe July 2009 for this trip and if any of you kind guys can give me some ideas for a 3 week trip via New York ideally then it will be greatly appreciated. Dont mind leaving Manchester or London UK.

thanks guys (and gals)

cheers, Gordie

maybe forget the SQ part as I now see they loading fuel surcharges of up to $500!!

maybe forget the SQ part as I now see they loading fuel surcharges of up to $500!!

Booking a round trip to SE Asia on LH/LX/TG from the UK isn't too far off that now. SQ are just playing catch up, albeit in one huge increase.

e.g current LH YQ to SIN roundtrip €280, SQ is only $230. TG to BKK is already $470, has been since June.

just another thought, dont mind leaving from Dublin to avoid UK departure tax!

ok guys, now got 112500 miles and want to spend them wisely on a 3 week trip to South America, want to see Machu Pichu, Rio de Janeiro and would like a few days in New York on the way back for some shopping.

as I said before we dont mind leaving from Dublin to avoid some bad UK tax but if not then Birmingham, Manchester and Heathrow are all alternatives.

Would like to go mid to late June09 for 3 weeks and welcome any suggestions the experts out there might have.

thanks again, it is really appreciated.

Gordie

back again,

got 112500 miles to spend.

How about this routing? LHR-YYZ-LIM with AC in 777 and 763?

Can we stop off in Toronto for 2-3 days on the way back? Is this allowable on a reward booking?

Looking at outbound 16 June 09 from LHR and returning 04 July 09 from Lima then leaving Toronto on 07 July 09 to head back to LHR.

will this work and what mileage can I expect to need + cash for travelling in C?

thanks everyone.
cheers, Gordie

Why another new thread ?

This is the third one; your second one was merged into your original and the same will happen to this one.

And the questions are all very simple to find the answer to without posting another thread.

back again,

got 112500 miles to spend.

How about this routing? LHR-YYZ-LIM with AC in 777 and 763?

Can we stop off in Toronto for 2-3 days on the way back? Is this allowable on a reward booking?

Looking at outbound 16 June 09 from LHR and returning 04 July 09 from Lima then leaving Toronto on 07 July 09 to head back to LHR.

will this work and what mileage can I expect to need + cash for travelling in C?

thanks everyone.
cheers, Gordie

Availability = ana tool
Milage needed = BMI website, award chart, tells you both how many miles and what cash you need.

tht

I thought the Forum was here to help other travellers?

My original thread has disappeared into the depths somewhere.

Some of us are not up to speed with checking availabilities and mileage needs etc.

If the forum is not designed to help others then I shall simply stop using it.

cheers, Gordie

If the forum is not designed to help others then I shall simply stop using it.

Oh, please don't do that.

Gordie

This forum is here to help other travellers and as you have found already, people are very willing to do so. However in return we all collectively try to keep to an informal set of etiquette to help things run a bit more smoothly. Just a little bit of give and take on the part of everyone makes things a little easier to work through.

With that in mind, 10 seconds of looking would have found your thread on the 2nd page of the bmi forum, so not disappeared at all. Making a small effort in the future will I am sure be appreciated by others.

Now after that little bit of feedback, let's get back to your questions.

Your proposed routing is the one I would use to get to Lima. So ^

You should be able to do a stop over (you are allowed 1) in Toronto on the way back. So ^

Cost for this will be 37,500 miles + £255 cash + taxes.

Hope that helps.

I thought the Forum was here to help other travellers?

My original thread has disappeared into the depths somewhere.

Some of us are not up to speed with checking availabilities and mileage needs etc.

If the forum is not designed to help others then I shall simply stop using it.

cheers, Gordie

- This forum is here for travelers to help each other, GIVE and take.
- Threads that a clear, have a helpful title and ask questions that are not able to answered via search or FAQ's rarely go unanswered, if you have searched and unable to find something indicate this, other FT'er's appreciate you atleast trying to help your self...
- You have been a member since 2007, enough time to learn how to search, and or read the sticky FAQ. You will never get up to speed unless you do that.
- Anyone is free to participate / or not in FT (subject to the rules / T&C's).

tht

thank you RAPC for that info.

I have managed to get the ANA tool up and running and am now trawling for availability on that routing but nothing showing up as yet. The only bit I do not understand is how to allow for a 2-3 day stopover. Do you have to input that as a transit city and put in the appropriate dates?

thank you for your useful feedback - i will behave from now on.

cheers, Gordie

The only bit I do not understand is how to allow for a 2-3 day stopover. Do you have to input that as a transit city and put in the appropriate dates?



Irrelevant. Search for flights one by one.

LHR-YYZ then YYZ-LIM etc. etc.

Use the blue Flight Search button at the bottom right of the screen - that will let you enter sector by sector.

thank you everyone for your input.

I have learned more this morning than I have done in a while !!

cheers, much appreciated, Gordie

Irrelevant. Search for flights one by one.

LHR-YYZ then YYZ-LIM etc. etc.

Then once you find the flights just call India and give them exact flight number and dates. Note that ANA may not 100% match what BMI DC can see...

tht

Note that ANA may not 100% match what BMI DC can see...

That may be down to the agent not looking hard enough though :rolleyes: Be persistent.

That may be down to the *agent not looking hard enough* though :rolleyes: Be persistent.

Yep !

I rate them slightly higher than the ones who don't look at all, because they can't be arsed !

That may be down to the agent not looking hard enough though :rolleyes: Be persistent.

Yes the trick is to tell them to scroll all the way down...

at last I have managed to make a successful redemption which I will post elsewhere.

Just wanted to say thanks to the contributors for their help and to let you know it took 3 attempts to make a booking as No 1 told me no availability, No 2 suffered a system crash and No 3 done it all easily, no fuss, references, taxes etc all done in one call as it should be.

cheers, Gordie

Nice one Gordie.

Congratulations on your first redemption. If it is for a trip to Lima, then I'm jealous!

Well done, glad to see that your persistance paid off ^

Merged for your reading pleasure.

Only my second post but saw the prospective Peru trip and thought I would share a recent trip experience. I have just returned form a trip to Lima via YYZ (MAN - DUS - YYZ - Lima) so if Lima is your final destination you will have a great trip. Peru is a terrific country and Macchu Pichu was the highlight of our trip. Great service in LH business (good food and wine), couldn't get business with AC but we didn't miss anything - the 767 they used on the YYZ - LIM leg was very old and quite honestly the business class cabin was inferior to PE on BMI - had I paid for business I would have been sorely disappointed. If you are headed Lima way I hope they have refurbished the AC 767 by the time you go!