BMI awards within the UK
 

Has anyone ever used MP miles to book a domestic UK award on BMI? At 10,000 miles is it a good value, or am I better to just buy a ticket on BMI? Thinking about going to Scotland during an upcoming trip. Anyone ever been to Glasgow or Edinburgh? Thanks!

BD flights are generally quite seasonal as far as prices go.

There are some offers at the moment to go from London-Scotland for GBP25 each way (including taxes etc).

UK domestic fares are generally very cheap if you get in early... and most of the fares are about 90% tax... which you would still have to pay on an award ticket... so I personally don't think they are good value to use points on, unless maybe you are considering a business ticket... but then the longest domestic flight is only about 1:30... so could also be classed as a waste of points.

Before you book, check your dates using the BMI online booking engine (www.flybmi.com). You may find that your flights are less than $40 round trip before taxes. As you'll have to pay taxes anyway, your 10,000 miles will be worth whatever the fare before taxes is (and you'll get 250 EQM per flight on your mileage plus account)

You can buy tickets online from the BMI website, and enter your mileage plus number. Tickets on UK domestic routes (and most European routes) are etickets, so you just need to show up at check-in with your passport and the credit card used for the booking. BMI also have self service check-in machines at most airports (including London Heathrow, Edinburgh and Glasgow).

Business class is much more expensive, but again for the miles I'm not sure it is worth it - the seat is similar to economy (no extra legroom) though you do get slightly better food (you get free food and drink in economy too).

I would choose Edinburgh rather than Glasgow, especially if your time is short or you have not been to Scotland before - it's a beautiful city and fairly easy to navigate. If you ask over on the BMI forum you should get no shortage of answers on which city is better (there is a BMI forum gathering up in Edinburgh this weekend).

You have to pay the full tax on the award tickets? How about fuel surcharges? I know in the US for domestic flights, in the past I was assessed nothing, and these days, I think they only assess the 9/11 fee. I was looking at a BD award last fall when prices were in the 110GBP range to EDI, unfortunately there was no coach availability on the return (though plenty on the way up). If I would have had to pay 40GBP+ in taxes, it might not have been worth it anyway.

Definitely NOT worth redeeming for a UK dom.

Going to EDI for a friend's stag-do in April on BA. He is redeeming 12k BA miles + £46.10 taxes and fees flying from LCY. I'm paying £136.50 all-in for the same price.

There is NO WAY IN THE WORLD that 12k BA miles are worth 90-odd-quid!

I suspect the same applies for BD redemption - even if it is at a lower 10k.

Besides which, I suspect there will be an award inventory meaning you have to be hyper-flexible if you really, really, really want to redeem miles.

I wouldn't bother - looked into it a couple of weeks back and came to the conclusion that not only was 10,000 miles pretty poor value for a 1 hour flight, but that as I was going to get hit about £45 in tax plus United's booking fee, I might as well just EasyJet it (which was £55 all in!).

For UK internals the difference between business and economy on BMI seems to be virtually non-existant.