British Midland Airways Diamond Club-Earning Part I

BMI is British Midland Airways, second largest carrier in UK, part of star alliance network. If you can understand how this program works, this can be one of the best programs in the world.

If you are PAID First or Business class flyer, or if you are economy class flyer, but not fly very often, or you are frequent flyer, but not fly UA and US very often, this maybe the program for you.

You can earn status miles on all star alliance partners and earn destination miles (redeemable miles) on star alliance partner and Qatar Airways and Virgin Atlantic

If you join now, you can get blue plus membership instantly, which will give u a complimentary meal and drink in-flight on Heathrow routes that operate a paid-for in-flight service, however, unless u live in UK, otherwise this benefit is not much for you.

BTW, u need fly 3000 miles on any Star alliance earning eligible flight to get Blue plus Status if you did not sign up via this promotion

Second tier is Sliver, which needs to fly 13000 miles in addition to 3000 miles on any Star alliance earning eligible flight. Primary benefits are use BMI lounge when you fly with BMI and 25% miles bonus and 20kg additional baggage allowance.

Final tier is Gold, which needs to fly 38000 miles in addition to 16K miles above on any Star alliance earning eligible flight. . Primary benefits are 35% bonus miles on BMI and 25% on other partners, use any star alliance partner lounge anywhere, upgrades on BMI award flights to the business cabin (or premium economy cabin on our long haul services) for you and a companion. For the first year, you need total 54K(3+13+38) status miles to get Gold, after that, only 38K to keep you Gold.

We all know that you don’t have any lounge access if you fly domestic within North America unless u purchase membership. However, with BMI Gold Status, you are free to use UA or US lounge even if you travel US domestically(must be on UA or US flight). There are many more benefits, those can be found here

Once you have Gold, then you fly another 17K status miles, after that, all your status miles will be convert to Destination miles on 1:1 basis. This can give you up to 625% bonus miles for a paid First class ticket for certain carriers or 425%/325% on paid business class ticket on certain Carriers or 225%/125% on certain Economy class.

Eg. ORD-MAN-ORD=7652 miles, in paid F, you get 7652*3=22962 destination miles+7652*3=22962 status miles (which will convert to Destination miles)+1913 Gold bonus. Paid First classes earn u 47837 for this RT.

Here is the earning table for different carrier, note: United discounted business class only earn 1.5 bonuses, which means 325% in exceed 55K threshold.