Yesterday evening a colleague and I, travelling from LHR to CDG on PE Y tickets, were called to the desk in the lounge to be told that the aircraft had been changed to "the Moscow aircraft", and were presented with new boarding passes which moved us from row 3 to the back row by the toilets.
Apparently the all the nice business seats were being kept empty "to keep the aircraft in trim".

In the end, a quick word with the cabin service director and we were back in row 3 again sampling the new Moscow C seats, but to us both it just seemed to be a waste of a simple no-cost marketing opportunity for bmi to delight/impress a few of its most loyal customers by moving them to the nice new seats up front.

Delete sorry wrong thread!

Are there any pics of the C seats on the Moscow A320?

Can anyone who has done the Moscow flight let me know how many miles you get for it?

Ms Raffles and I are off next week (she is on a J paid ticket through work, I'm on a reward ticket). She needs 7,700 LH status miles to get to FTL (Silver), but I get a nasty feeling DME may not be quite far enough.

Aren't LH earnings fixed for intra European flights ?

So for 'J' that's 2000 M&M status each way.

Darn it ....! That is a pretty poor result given the length of the flight.

I'm sure she'll be able to make up the necessary 3,700 status miles by the end of the year, but it won't stop her losing 6,000 miles through expiry at the end of June.

I should have opened her a DC account before now - she would have got Silver purely on the back of the J flights we did to BKK in February, and instead she is still languishing with a LH blue card.

That is a shame, because if she could get the 3,700 before the end of June, she wouldn't lose the 6000 as she'd be FTL and therefore immune.

I originally posted this over on the BA board, but I have cross-posted in here for posterity for people travelling to Moscow in the future on BMI:

Am currently in Moscow, having taken the BMI this morning. It was, without a doubt, the best flight I have ever done in short haul in Europe.

Seats - fantastic, 41 inch leg room, decent recline, foot rest. 2 x 2. Had 1C which meant I could stick my legs out as far as I wanted.

Service - great crew, but not hard when only 4 of 24 business seats taken. Why the 2nd couple were put behind us (so we could recline in their faces) I have no idea!

Food and drink - champagne after being seated, plus a 2nd glass offered before we'd even taken off! Choice of chicken in black bean sauce and penne pasta for mains, plus a great salad for starter and HOT PUDDING! Choice of treacle or chocolate sponge! PLUS ... a plate of cheese (2 types) plus water biscuits, a pack of Duchy oat biscuits and some decent grapes. Choice of red or white wines for the meal, served from a full size bottle. The guy even poured me a taster to see if I liked it. Nearer to landing, we got tea and coffee again plus 2 bars of Green & Black's chocolate each (these are decent sized bars as well) - one milk, one dark choc and orange.

Usual newspapers etc also offered - FT, Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Mail - but no magazines. We were also offered a hard disk player but we both refused and stuck with the papers.

Truly excellent in flight product. Its only a shame the BMI lounge is so bad. You can't even use the Diamond Club section on a full J ticket to Russia, so we were sent upstairs to the Business Lounge. However, I had to go down to the DC bit (LH Gold card holder that I am) because only there do you get any food - and by food I mean a packet of cornflakes and one of those awful rubber croissants in an airtight bag!

Really, if you're going to Russia and the times suit then you really must try the BMI product. If you're BA Gold, use the BA lounge though!

Coming back, I can also confirm that the Transearo lounge is a quiet oasis, albeit with no English language newspapers. Nibbles and drink in good supply though. Apparently there are some computers upstairs but I missed them as I thought upstairs was a staff area! Load in J coming back was 2, and again (despite 22 alternative seats to pick from) they sat the 2nd person directly behind my 1C seat so I could recline in his face ....

there's a picture of the Moscow C seats in the 'Big Story' section of the current online Diamond Club magazine.

I wonder if the handsome passenger is Raffles or Irmster ?

I think fat git with glasses would be a better description of me (also I always I have a window seat and this guy is in an aisle).

The empty C seats around him are realistic for a DME flight :)

Alarm bells on Moscow route for Gold redemtions!!
 

I called the BMI DC to redeem miles for two J class LHR - DME - LHR and when I was quoted the miles for J I asked the guy ''dont i get a free upgrade and pay Y miles?'' I was told no you dont that has been changed:confused:

Anyway I said that I hadn't been advised of this new change and he put me on hold. After 5 mins he came back and said that I was ok if I booked it before the end of the month!! Whats going on ????

now that is worrying - although with the call centre you never know. Hope that doesn't also impact on using GUVs on the DME route :(

just spoke to the call centre. I was told both the J upgrade for golds on awards and the use of GUVs on the DME route is currently 'under review' and a decision will be announced soon (presumably not to allow them).

Bit annoying if it happens - I based my decision to retain my BD gold and not my BA gold primarily due to being able to upgrade on the DME route. Oh well - I guess my stock of GUV's may have to go on ebay :)

Very disappointing decision, especially given the amount of empty space in C at the moment. You'd think this would be a good opportunity for them to encouraging miles-burning at the very least. :(

I would guess they're looking at grouping Moscow in with the mid-haul bmed destinations, which may well have a new set of redemption rates and upgrade opportunities