Hi,

I will be working on a contract shortly which will require me to travel from London to LAX about once a month for six months.

Other factors... I'm currently in Sydney and returning to London at the weekend with Singapore Airlines - worth approx ~11k miles. The following week I'll be making a round trip from London to LAX - again worth about ~11k miles. Then in the New Year I can safely assume 1 round trip to LAX each month from Jan to June. Then there's a small chance I'll have another round trip to Australia (again from London) later in the year.

I'm based in the UK.

I currently have a Delta Skymiles account with about 36k miles on it (but zero MQM) but that's about it in terms of loyalty programs. Obviously I want to be able to maximise the benefit of my upcoming travel to the max.

From my own research it looks like BMI Diamond Club is the one to go with. I can fly direct from LHR to LAX with United and I can also claim the flight back to the UK from Sydney. BMI also doesn't have the calendar year limitation that some schemes have that could work against me in my situation. And 54k miles will get me Gold Status. I looked at Virgin and BA and their 'Tier' points don't look they'll do much for me...

I suppose I'll also be living in a hotel for the best part of 6 months so that's probably the topic for another thread or maybe it's relevant to this topic too

Suggestions please!