Reason NOT to transfer from MilesandMore to Diamond Club
 

Hello, my father is a MM Senator. He flies a lot on UA and LH in C.

I was researching and it seems that everything is better in regards to Diamond Club.
Taxes are lower, millage needed for redemptions are lower...etc.

Any reason NOT to move over? (apart from the fact that you have to regain status, but that would be relatively quick).

Main awards we use are EU-US in C. So it's 90,000 miles on LH and 75,000 on BMI (plus LH taxes are absurd).

Thanks!

Ps. How are their elite callcenters?

You have answered your own question.

Indeed - typically anything but 'elite'

As good as their IT.

are their callcenters that bad?

I checked that taxes seem about the same, but the awards seem a LOT cheaper.

You have three replies that say so. If you don't believe us, just do a search on this forum for call centre and see what it comes up with. I suspect a search on shenanigans would also be enlightening.

The call centre IS that bad. You can be lucky and get a good agent and then it can all be straightforward. But it's just that - luck.

Remember on LH if you have two people flying on rewards, you can get the companion award as a Senator- meaning that the second person is "half price", so it is 135,000 miles for two to fly in C. If he is really flying a lot, he may want to look at consolidating it all onto only LH flights instead of some UA ones, in which case he may be able to get to HON (don't know but it is a possibility).

well thanks for the info.

As for award bookings, I would have to do them all by phone (as I won't be flying BMI). Checking the availab on the ANA tool and then calling in and giving them the flights for award ticketing, how hard of a task can I expect it to be?

Thanks again!

Have a look through this thread, it can be super frustrating:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...ns-thread.html

OTOH, this thread shows it is possible:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...es-2010-a.html

Ignore the call centre jibes. If it shows on ANA you WILL get it booked eventually.

Here are the key things to think about:

POSITIVE v M&M:
Lower redemption rates for most awards
Substantially cheaper intra-Europe awards
One way awards available for 50% of a return (M&M charges 70%)
No penalty for booking different classes (M&M charges F both ways if you book F out, Y back)
Substantially lower status thresholds

NEGATIVE v M&M:
Earning rate can be lower on intra-European flights (and worth checking the rate on other regular routes you fly)
M&M status lasts for at least 2 years (DC is 1 year)
You cannot use your miles to pay the taxes (LH allow this on intra-Europe redemptions for 15k miles)

And, for status reasons, BD Silver card holders only get lounge access when flying BD. This is the same rule for all *A programmes, of course, but if you fly LH a lot then M&M Silver will obviously be more useful.

Well why should they ignore them when the OP specifically asked about them? Nobody has said anything that isn't true, but you can, not necessarily will get them booked. I've certainly missed out on rewards due to the ICC messing me about to the point where availability was gone. Others have too.

I've had award bookings cancelled because they were not ticketed in time - and would have discovered this at the airport were it not for trying to book the cook on a first class flight. I have been refused valid routings - Europe to India to Singapore and only got this on the fourth call. I have been double charged for changed bookings. It's only thanks to tricks that I have learnt here (principally checkmytrip.com) that have enabled me now to detect some of these problems before they arise.

I thought Diamond Club passed on taxes and charges in full so you would pay the same amount when redeeming BMI miles on LH/LX flights as you would as a M&M member redeeming M&M miles.

I am a M&M Senator and also hold a Diamond Club account. My main reason for not crediting more miles to DC was what I'd read in this forum about the call centres. :o Also in my 5 years of M&M membership I only had to contact them once about miles not crediting as expected. I don't credit miles to my DC account as often but I only seem to have c. 60% success rate without intervention.

My one and only experience of redeeming BMI miles was not as traumatic as I had feared and I started crediting miles mainly from non-flying activities to DC to take advantage of one-way awards. But my main FFP is still M&M because I believe in holding a status with the airline you fly regularly and because of soft perks such as op-ups and wait-listing for awards.

BD's program gives you a 25% mileage bonus not only for flying BMI, but also any *A carrier. That is something you won't get with M&M.

On top of that your miles go a hell of a lot further with BMI as you can book rewards using miles+cash. Return Europe-Asia-Europe BC award on a *A carrier is 120k miles, which is pretty much standard practice, but you can opt to use 1/2 the miles and pay 271 GBP. So, 120k miles can get you a round-trip BC ticket... or it can get you two return BC tickets for just 542 GBP more. :)