Originally Posted by
iwillflytheworld
Although DC is probably a better program than M&M for paid premium travel (in terms of redemption opportunities), if you travel LH often (or more often than bmi), being a "native" elite is always convenient. Also, you need to qualify for SEN only once every two years. Of course, the amount of miles to get SEN is more than double what is needed for bmi gold, but given your travel pattern it shouldn't be a problem.
Not necessarily true.
For example, my partner flys regularly in European J transiting either MUC, FRA or ZRH.
Let's use the following example (which I suspect many Euro flyers out there do): If you took 10 return flights credited in to LH that would net 100,000 including the SEN status bonus which also counts towards elite or status miles, i.e. that is
8,000 (2,000 miles per sector) x 1.25 (25 % status bonus) x 10 (number of return flights) = 100,000
This would give you SEN status for 2 years and 100,000 miles to burn.
On BD, 8 flights on LH/LX would net you 38,400 which would also give you BD*G. To keep the comparison fair, let's go with 10 return flights which would net a total of 48,000 status miles and 60,000 destination miles to burn on flights.
With this in mind, which programme would you pick? Yes, cash and miles would be an option to make up the short fall, but at least on LH you would not have to hand over the cash in the first place just to get the premium seat on your redemption.
The only place where BD is better is on long haul F or J.
Things of course change when you get above the 55K mark, but the above example flyer would not have reached this milestone and it would not be for another 3 return flights via FRA, MUC or ZRH that the 55K bonus would start to kick in.
Food for thought when picking a *A programme.
