The new BA credit card, described here, has drawn a lot of attention because of the 100,000-mile sign-up bonus, but the real deal is that the card, in effect, is offering about three miles per dollar of charges, as follows:

$30,000 in charges generates 37,500 miles (1.25 miles per dollar) and a companion award ticket.

Another $80,000 in charges on a Starwood Amex generates 80,000 Starpoints. These can normally be exchanged for 100,000 BA miles. With the (hopefully) annual 25% bonus for BA conversion (on top of the standard 25% bonus for all Starpoint conversions), however, the points can be exchanged for 125,000 BA miles.

Combine the BA miles, and that's 162,500 miles. The companion ticket in effect doubles these miles, to 325,000 miles. For a total of $110,000 in charges. That's 2.95 miles per dollar. (No wonder gleff got so excited!)

With the 50% Diners Club BA bonus instead of the Starwood bonus, and $110,000 in total charges, it works out to 2.91 miles per dollar. Put everything on the BA card instead, in any amount that's enough to use the companion award ticket, and you're still talking about 1.25 x 2 = 2.5 miles per dollar.

I know of only two credit cards that are even close to this. One is Virgin Amex. If you charge $25,000 by your anniversary date, you get a total of 52,500 miles (37,500 for the charges + 15,000 in threshold bonuses), and one-half off on an economy-class companion award ticket. If that were something you want to use (and a lot of frequent flyers wouldn't) then that's worth, in effect, another 26,250 miles, for a total of 78,750 miles for $25,000 in charges. That's 3.15 miles per dollar, but only if you use the economy companion ticket. Without that, it's 2.1 miles per dollar.

The other arguably competitive card is the Amex Gold Card. Threshold bonuses at $20,000 and $50,000 yield 75,000 MR points for $50,000 in charges. If DL offers a 30% transfer bonus again, that's 97,500 DL miles for $50,000 in charges, or 1.95 miles per dollar.

Diners Club has offered 100% transfer bonuses to BA and Icelandair (in effect, 2 miles per dollar), but I doubt that we'll be seeing those again.

Of course, both mileage award amounts and award availability vary tremendously between one award program and the next.

So, anyway, the BA card seems unprecedented, in more ways than one.