ajamieson

Well, the Moderator fairy has waved his magic wand Several of you expressed concerns in this thread about forthcoming changes to Diamond Club, many of them related to the product changes taking place at bmi (long-haul, upgrade vouchers, medium-haul/Bmed, redemption tables, premium economy, flat-beds etc).

Senior folks at Diamond Club agreed to answer as many questions from FTers as they are able. The people at Diamond Club are doing us a special favour - it is not a scientific marketing exercise. Even if the questions are not answered, we will at least have put forward our most common concerns.

Thank you to Wingnut and virtualtroy for making the suggestion, and thank you to diamond club for once again acting as a very patient and efficient go-between ^^

QUESTIONS FROM FLYERTALK...AND THE ANSWERS FROM DIAMOND CLUB...

1. Will automatic X/I upgrades for gold member redemptions be ended for any
routes, and if so, which ones and when? Will the new or old policy apply
to former Bmed routes?
No, there are no current plans to change X / I upgrades for gold members. All award flights and availability issues are being discussed and an integral part of the ongoing review of diamond club with the intention of improving the overall diamond club scheme, and will apply across the board to all bmi routes.

2 Will there be any changes to the acceptance of Gold Upgrade Vouchers on
any routes, and if so when will they be implemented? Has there been any
thought given to the likely sharp drop in space-available upgrade
availability in long-haul premium economy? Is an alternative voucher
scheme being considered?
Again, this is being considered as part of the ongoing review of diamond club with the specific intention of ensuring that the gold card offering is improved wherever possible.

3. Has there been any recent change in the definition of "most direct
route" for redemption bookings? Are there any examples of routings that
would no longer be considered valid, are there any plans to introduce
more detailed guidance for staff and members about routings?
As far as we are aware there have been no changes made to the rulings covering award flights. However, the existing rules, as shown in the “guide to earning and spending miles” are now being applied more consistently, and therefore some invalid routings that “slipped” through the net previously are now being picked up on, and no longer being permitted. There are no current plans to introduce and more detailed guidance for staff or members, however this could be subject to change when the results of the ongoing review are published.

4. What has been causing the delays to or failures of bonus postings to DC
accounts, and are there any plans to find a long-term fix? En example
would be the 200 bonus miles for Hertz bookings make via the BD website. And is there any way of simplifying the various bonus credits to that they are more easily traceable on account summaries? This would make it easier for customers to check miles had been posted correctly as well as reduce the number of calls and e-mails to staff querying crediting issues.
The failure to post miles to a given members account can be for a multitude of reasons – just some of which are outlined below:

1. A very common reason is that we have not had the data sent across to us by the partner in question. In the above example Hertz are mentioned. They send the data of which members have hired cars and the value of miles to award in each case. If a particular member has not been included in a file when they ought to have been, then they will not be credited with the miles they are due.
2. The data may have been sent by the partner but in the case of the particular member the data ’string’ may have been corrupt or invalid (failed our internal validation processes) and therefore this member’s activity (in this scenario car hire) is rejected in the LOAD process.
3. In some instances failure to post an activity to a members account may be because the member omitted to insert their bmi FF (Frequent Flier) number into their booking. Without this the flight activity can not be attributed to the member in question.
4. Sometimes it can be due to the credit coming across to us in a file later than expected or added retrospectively as a manual credit (following receipt of confirmation that the miles credit is owed ) – what we refer to as a ‘RETRO’.
5. We do also have instances where ‘issues’ arise that are entirely of our own making but only surface after a good deal of time has elapsed. For example there was a problem with the Lounge Surplus award (‘55K credit’) earlier on in this year which affected some of our gold members. There was in short a fault in the coding logic where a member ‘wrapped around’ to qualify for a Lounge Surplus Credit in their second year. In year one the code held up but as a gold member came round a second time to qualify for this credit there was an error in the code and it ‘fell over’. This Lounge Surplus credit was a new credit only introduced in 2006 and so it was not until members came around to earn a credit for the second time (by virtue of having a Lounge Miles balance greater than 55,000 miles) that the problem emerged. This was not an easy ‘fix’ by any means and regrettably led to a delay in these credits being awarded and at the correct value.

We have processes in place that continually monitor what is being sent by our partners to load into the database. We try wherever possible to load data as soon as we have it and we also try to continually refine these processes so that they cause the minimum of disruption to our diamond club members. However, we do have a great many partners with differing levels of technical capability and this in itself can lead to a certain amount of problems once an ‘established process’ goes wrong in some way.
We would add that currently there is no plan to overhaul/simplify the various bonus credits that can be awarded to members. It is not the easiest thing to simplify when there is different logic employed for the different credits and what is more there needs to be ‘unique’ identifier code for all our own internal tracking and reporting processes.

5. When will the Manage My Booking facility be fixed, and could
it be improved to include redemption or other GDS bookings?
You can retrieve redemption bookings made on bmi operated flights via manage your booking. We are working on retrieving bookings via “manage my booking” with the agents GDS record locators for view only, and we are hoping this should be live towards the end of 2007.

6. Are there any plans to change earning or redemption rates before Summer
2008?
No, the rates for zones 1 and 2 have recently been reduced, making diamond club the most generous UK based frequent flyer programme, and there are currently no plans to make any further changes.

7. Are there any plans to alter or phase out the miles plus cash
redemptions?
No, there are currently no plans to phase out this much-appreciated benefit.

8. Is there any chance of having a DC helpline based in the UK, or access
to more knowledgeable call centre staff for top-tier or 'advanced'
customers?
We have a very experienced gold card team within the call centre that are able to help with a variety of questions. If further information or clarification is required then we have escalation procedures in place for team leaders and team managers to handle the enquiry.

9. Is a Star Alliance-wide redemption booking tool being developed, even if
only to check for availability?
As you can appreciate, it requires significant resources to develop such functionality. All Star carriers including bmi recognise the need for this, however we cannot put any timescales on the introduction of such a tool at the moment.

10. Are there any plans for 24-hour access to the call centre?
This is currently under review. As soon as any decision has been made, we will advise our diamond club members.

11. Is there any chance that e-ticket redemptions on BD flights could be
bookable at shorter notice than 3 days? Often there are X seats
available right up until departure and it would make sense to utilise
these if they can't be sold as revenue.
This is something that we do not publish, however the call centre do have the authority to make bookings under these conditions, subject to ticketing and availability issues being resolved. We will ensure that all call centre agents working within the diamond club area are reminded that they have this discretionary flexibility, and may offer this to our gold card holders as and when possible.

12. Are there any planned improvements to lounges, aside from the recent
catering changes? Would it be possible to arrange for lounge access for
*G and *S in LAS?
With regards to lounge improvements, we have a 5 year strategy in place, which will see an improvement to all lounges. We will look into lounge access for gold and silver members in LAS and respond to you as soon as possible.

13. Will the website be changed to offer multi-city or Star Alliance revenue
bookings?
This is a possibility, however currently it is a resourcing and finance issue. Moving forward we would like to be able to offer our members this valued facility.

14. Will there be any more earning-partner airlines for diamond club?
Yes, we are pleased to advise that Air China and Shanghai Airlines will be joining Star Alliance on 1 December, and as such will become full diamond club partners later this year (possible partnership launch could be as early as September. TBC)

15. Are there any plans to improve redemption ticketing procedures to
prevent members losing awards because tickets are not issued prior to
partner airlines releasing the seats back into the GDS?
We are revisiting the process we already have in place to make sure it is as robust as we can make it.

16. Would it be possible to get eticket receipts for eticketed redemption
tickets, in order to reduce confusion, error and concern about ticketing?
Revenue services can issue receipts for paper tickets or e-tickets. If a receipt has already been provided elsewhere i.e. when making the booking, we do charge GBP3.00 for a duplicate but if no receipt has been previously issued then we waive that charge. The receipts that we produce are not system generated and have to be manually hand typed but can then be faxed, posted or e-mailed. We therefore advise all passengers that we aim to provide the receipt within 7 working days as long as payment has been taken.

17. Will it ever be possible to use OLCI or SSCI even when revenue
itineraries have been altered or endorsed by the call centre?
Pending response from the relevant department, however as soon as we know the answer we will let you know.

18. Would it be possible to develop a simpler, UK-based system for refunding
cancelled redemption bookings?
This is a very sensible suggestion, and we are currently looking at the possibility of an online cancellation facility. However, in the interim, we will thoroughly review the current process in the short-term to streamline it, and make it more user-friendly and accurate. This will be advised as and when it has been developed.

19. Can we have some more promos to encourage traffic? BA offer these
regularly.
We have had multiple promotions this year already to encourage traffic, including the Triple miles promotion at the beginning of the year. We are always looking for promotional opportunities to encourage our members to fly with both bmi and our partners, and will continue to do so as diamond club moves forward and evolves during the review process.

20. Are there any plans for a higher tier than gold, with more challenging
entry requirements and similarly enhanced benefits?
We recognise that we do have a number of gold card members who fly considerably more than the required number of flights each year to earn gold. We are currently reviewing our diamond club scheme and our aim is to provide appropriate rewards and benefits to our highest value members.

21. Will DC remove the extra mileage requirement when connecting between or
within zones 1 and 2 where there is no direct routing available?
No, this is in keeping with Star Alliance guidelines and also helps maintain the profitability of the service to bmi, allowing us to keep the current level of redemptions seats available.