frankvb

It's like those items with 'lifetime guarantee'. Then when it breaks down after 3 years and you inquire about that, they will tell you that the lifetime is only 2 years

SmilingBoy

This is not true. HON existed long before the LX acquisition. LH also did not grant HON status to all Swiss Circle members, but only to those who would have made HON if LX would have already been integrated for a while. In fact, only 50 out of 3,000 Swiss Circle card holders received HON status.

SEN is valid for two years anyway, so I guess that's what you would get as a BD lifetime gold if they don't match the lifetime status.

Cyba

I don't know much about the details of the DC rules. DC might be better in some aspects but in terms of earning and redemption I have found M&M to be quite good especially when compared to the BA alternative.

As far as a potential LH take-over I, for one would be completely supportive. BA needs a network carrier competition in London so a stronger BD/LH can only be good for travellers. I think the chances of BA being allowed to take BD over without significant penalties in terms of giving up slots is probably quite slim. On the other hand in such a hypothetical situation, if they were allower to sell BD slots to get approval, they might still be interested.

Thta's my rambling thoughts.

stut

I wonder what LH's plans for BD would be?

My fear is that they'd "do an AirUK" and gradually route all traffic through Germany (makes sense to a large extent - the regions have been shafted by BA, and FRA/MUC make for a much more pleasant experience than LHR). However... LHR is a big draw, and BD a good way in. Maybe we'll see what 'could have been' from the KLMuk takeover.

I still need to use my miles pretty soon.

SmilingBoy

I wouldn't worry too much. The ZRH hub is still very much alive. And one of the assets of BD are the LHR slots, which are most effectively used for long-hauls. Would you think that LH would use the LH brand for long-haul flights to the US, or the BD brand?

LonLH

If it goes like KL-AF or even LX-LH, we might still have a situation with LHR as another LH hub. There is too much through traffic from LHR which LH can pick if they start flying across the pond direct from LHR. BA anyway had a monopoly over long haul flights from LHR so some competition is welcome, especially if it will reduce C and F fares to more reasonable levels.
The problem is that BD has not too many long haul routes to begin with (unlike KL and LX), so the temptation might be to just use it as a feeder for LH long haul routes rather than build long haul rote network from LHR.

RAPC

From a selfishly local point of view, I suspect we would see Manchester turned into a well backed-up LH hub. Not necessarily long haul routes galore, but certainly well utilised with links to Germany as well as some additional European routes too.

Also, my other hope would be for the bmi staff to be well looked after if said takeover occurs. My experience of them at the airport, in the air, or via the Head Office (including Joanna of course) has been positive. The benefit of an organisation like LH taking over would be that they wouldn't be trying to make a fast buck via asset stripping. There would be a long term plan in place.

Just my opinions of course, feel free to disagree if you think I'm being naive

A_Lee

So if BMI decided tomorrow to rename their program "Gold Club", they could wipe out all Diamond Club accounts and not be held liable? I don't know what the terms and conditions state but certainly there are some places in the world where you could sue the crap out of them if they tried to do that and would have an excellent case regardless of what their terms and conditions say. There's nothing different with them doing that and with them selling the airline and the new owner doing the same. The case of LH taking over LX was entirely different than this because LX was in bankruptcy at the time (please corrrect me if my memory is wrong on this point). When an airline is bankrupt and they get bought out the owners may not have any obligation to the bankrupt airline's FFP members and what LX did was an excellent goodwill gesture that they didn't have to do. If an airline is bankrupt and no way to honor it's debts, including FFP benefits, you have no real recourse and should be happy to be getting full credit for your existing mileage. Of course LH probably did what they did in order to create goodwill, in hopes of not alienating many of LX's old customers, and so making more money for LH, so the real reason was purely business not their great generosity. In the case of BD, BD is not bankrupt and BD or any new owner of BD I would think are legally liable to abide by the Diamand Club terms and conditions and even more than that depending on what local laws/courts will allow.

If BD after awarding lifetime membership, or promising lifetime membership in the future suddenly cancelled it I think you'd have an excellent legal case and in the same way you'd have an excellent case if LH buys BD and renigs on the promises made by BD. I wonder what country's laws would have the best protection for BD members. If anyone knows that it might be worthwhile for some if they could possibly change their address to such a place.

If LH mishandles the takeover they may very well have a large number of irate former customers who will do a great deal of damage to LH's reputation.

SmilingBoy

I'm sure neither bmi nor LH would be able to close the programme without taking over the miles. But I'm not so sure about things like "lifetime gold". What if bmi creates two new status levels (say platinum and titanium), which correspond to silver and gold now, and just changes the benefits of silver and gold to something negligible, would you have any case?

A_Lee

They have the right to change benefits, change earning rates, change burn rates, and lots of other things. I doubt anyone would have a case if they were just changing benefits, if within reason. Changing to something totally negligible though might be something that could be challenged legally. Lifetime gold though is not something that can be changed. Lifetime means one and only one thing. The gold benefits could be changed but lifetime cannot.

The lifetime gold also means lifetime *A gold, which means you have much more protection against devaluing BD gold because unless all *A carriers devalued their gold it would still be something of significant value to a lot of frequent flyers.

allanhuk

You have no legal case whatsoever.

From BMI T&C's

card membership status

...bmi may at any time, in its absolute discretion and without notice withdraw or terminate your diamond club blue plus, silver or gold membership whereupon you will be obliged to return your Card and luggage tag to bmi without delay.

A_Lee

Just depends on which jurisdiction you take them to court in! Some courts may laugh at you while others will be 100% on your side. They have this clause in there because, among other things, they want to be able to terminate members who abuse their program. I doubt any airline would knowingly terminate someone's membership without good cause. Now LH or anyone who buys BD may very well not honor lifetime memberships and use these existing T&C's as ground for why they're doing it, in hopes that most people won't bother to challenge them on it, but it doesn't mean that someone couldn't challenge them and win. Of course this is all speculation because we don't even know for sure if LH will buy BD, nor what they will do with the BD program and existing members/benefits.

BTW, what's really funny about BMI's T&C's is that they actually want their luggage tags back!

Shofar

LH also has its won lifetime SEN (*G).

Over age 60.
SEN for 10 years without break.
Flown 1,000,000 miles.

Shofar

ajamieson

One obvious benefit (from the bean-counters' point of view) would be an end to the anachronism of Donington Hall. Perceived wisdom is that running a modern airline hubbed at LHR from a country house in the east Midlands is absurd. I understand the logic but I rather like the old-fashioned, family feel of bmi that the Hall represents: it can be maddening at times, but old-school values and private ownership have protected bmi from all sorts of horrors in recent years, giving it a more responsive and service-orientated ethos. And while Bmi is often amateurish, the alternative is a more corporate envrionment which is deaf to the interests of British customers (look at Flying Blue or the way BA treats its dwindling number of non-London customers). With the closure of Donington Hall, the heart of bmi would disappear.

Apart from the building, though, there aren't many assets to strip. Bmi does not have the depth of head office management that other airlines enjoy. But it is the only service airline to have its own ground staff at airports outside London (BA take note) and I would hate that to change. When KLM canned all the ex-AirUK staff, the customer service became shocking.

VC10 Boy

Is Luftwaffe's Frequent Traveller a *G or *S

If the latter I'm going back to Krisflyer.