MBNA Diamond Club credit cards to end 30th September

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• bob says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:25

  Diamond Club was so brilliant !

  And so was British Midland !

  • sandra says:

    8 Sep8 September 18:30

    Do any of you know how to contact BMI Diamond club besides email that keeps asking me for my membership no? I joined when it was BMI baby and had an 8 digit number I cant get to speak/email anyone unless I give an 11 digit number. when I press forgotten number it asks for my email which I never seem to get!! so frustrating for 2 years air miles have being going here and I cant transfer to Aios

    • Alan says:

      9 Sep9 September 00:01

      Have you tried adding 3 leading zeroes?

      • harry says:

        9 Sep9 September 14:08

        my number is 100XXXXXXXX so try that format as well

    • Gordon says:

      9 Sep9 September 13:41

      Try phoning 0191 490 7901. They were able to access my DC account and manually transfer the DC miles to Avios.

• sigma421 says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:25

  🙁

  That’s all I have to say on the matter.

• Alan says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:26

  What a shame to see it go – was a fabulous scheme, both originally under the bmi guise and also as a credit card!

• Mark says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:26

  Damn, what a shame. Though I totally understand it now. Gotta miss those old BMI zone 2 – zone 8 awards. The mastercard in its current form was also great when combined with a Supercard for overseas spending. Oh well.

• Hugh says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:31

  Bollocks

  I knew I jinxed it, when discussing this morning that I thought there golden goose would be sacrificed within the year

  Very sad to put it mildly

• JPR says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:31

  Ideas welcome for pre-spending on the Amex? Gift cards (inc. non bonus points supermarket ones, Amazon etc.)

  • Boris says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:36

    New car?
    Double glazing?

    • Zander says:

      31 Aug31 August 19:22

      I wouldn’t buy a new car on an AMEX even if the dealership accepts, if you have just received the card AMEX will ask for proof of funds which can sometimes be a nightmare having gone through it but with the German outfit.

      • Boris says:

        1 Sep1 September 09:51

        Can’t you just pay the funds into the Amex first?

        Or does that not work with them?

  • harry says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:44

    nobody likes my ticket tout idea but it’s legal

    what a sad old day

    I must stick a couple of extra £K through on essentials before it goes, council tax being obvious possibility

  • harry says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:47

    easy to buy Amazon giftcards @ Morrisons, so I guess I’ll stick some there

    can anybody think of a way to buy credit/ giftcards to be set against future petrol/ diesel?

    • Alan says:

      31 Aug31 August 14:58

      Do Tesco take their own gift cards at petrol stations?

      • Rob says:

        31 Aug31 August 15:05

        I’m going to be pre-paying my future VAT and PAYE for the next year …. no real opportunity cost keeping the money in the bank these days!

        • Alan says:

          31 Aug31 August 15:10

          Indeed, especially with Santander 123 dropping their rates. I’ve put more money into Zopa.

        • Nick M says:

          31 Aug31 August 15:33

          Have you looked at RateSetter? – I’ve had money with Zopa since 2011 but over the last year or so RateSetter have had much better rates and so I have been moving funds across as/when loans are repaid. – Happy to provide a “refer a friend” link if you like/Raffles doesn’t object!

        • Alan says:

          31 Aug31 August 15:46

          Thanks, Nick – will take a look although I quite like with Zopa that I don’t need to worry about setting rates, it just takes care of itself (with pretty decent returns and low default rates). If I’m going to invest I’ll get Rob to drop you an email with my details 🙂

        • Nick M says:

          31 Aug31 August 21:25

          No problem – you can set it to invest at “market rates” if you don’t want to choose your own rate. The market rate is generally higher than Zopa, and to give one data point – I had an order complete this morning at 5.9% for a 5 year loan.

          There are differences in the safeguarding measures and there will be differences between the two when they are underwriting loans, but I haven’t had any major issues with defaults/late payments to date on either platform

        • Alan says:

          31 Aug31 August 23:37

          Thanks, Nick – will take a look.

        • harry says:

          31 Aug31 August 21:30

          how will you proceed when somebody does actually default?

        • Alan says:

          31 Aug31 August 23:39

          I’ve had a couple so far but as they split the loans between lenders the liability is small. Anything recovered through debt collection is paid back and losses can now be offset against income on your tax return.

        • Bob says:

          31 Aug31 August 22:50

          Is it the case with these things that you absorb defaults and are supposed to make many microloans to dilute the damage? I’m staggered that the rate would be as low as 5.9% for five years (barely higher than the dividend rate on some liquid investment trusts) if that’s the case.

        • Richmond says:

          31 Aug31 August 15:23

          I’m going to pay VAT too. Was going to put it through Hilton. Ideas for pre-paid vouchers are welcomed.

        • Bob says:

          31 Aug31 August 16:56

          Can you pay HMRC for spouse with credit card or does card have to be in own name?

        • James67 says:

          31 Aug31 August 17:07

          Do it in small chunks then, a few days ago MBNA declined my AFKLM purchase of just over £3k despite no previous difficulties with large transactions. At the time I just thought it was fraud prevention but given this news today I now wonder if there was something more to it! So bad news, reopens the wounds of BMI passing, really miss my 37.5k TG flights to KTM.

        • Rob says:

          31 Aug31 August 17:43

          Don’t think so. I did an £8k payment over the phone with them recently – if you get declined (as this was), they can authorise it on the phone in real time (eg you sit at your PC, make the payment whilst talking to the agent, agent approves it as it pops up).

        • the_real_a says:

          31 Aug31 August 18:07

          MBNA have a £3k limit per transaction (in my case) – otherwise it requires a post decline phone call to authorise.

        • James67 says:

          31 Aug31 August 18:11

          @Rob, thanks for this, I just put it through on my Lloyds avios card to hit spend target as a fallback. Useful tip for the future though.

      • Dan Davies says:

        31 Aug31 August 23:44

        Tesco do take Tesco gift cards at PFS not Esso/Express

        Morrisons Fuel save scheme ended in July. So no extra incentive.

        Sainsbury’s do not take gift cards/vouchers on fuel

    • Brian says:

      31 Aug31 August 15:54

      Sainsbury’s allow you to use their gift cards in their petrol stations – can’t see why the other supermarkets should be any different.

      • harry says:

        31 Aug31 August 21:53

        small problem no Sainsbury PFS but thanks

      • Dan Davies says:

        31 Aug31 August 23:45

        Sainsburys vouchers and cards have “Not valid at Petrol Stations” across the back of them.

    • Andrew says:

      31 Aug31 August 16:32

      That’s a good idea. Amazon Gift Codes are valid for a decade…

      Might as well buy £1000

  • harry says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:54

    we need another decent points deal on Tesco Wines – a couple of £100 would help plus stock up on essentials

    I’ll have a look tonight

  • harry says:

    31 Aug31 August 15:01

    obvious ones being

    council tax (paypoint)
    utilities
    internet/ telephone rental
    supermarket requirements (fill the freezer!)
    tv licence
    other monthly bills

    you can pay all these in advance

    • Roger says:

      31 Aug31 August 17:02

      my council tax can be paid at post office or at payzone (note no paypoint).
      looking at payzone shops does not seem any of them (small independent ones) will accept amex.

      Trying to work out how to pay off CT for the remainder using Amex but so far no luck, as my local post office flatly refused saying cannot take credit card for council tax (not even Visa or MC). so i am back to square one. My local authority is wokingham if anyone is curious.

      • harry says:

        31 Aug31 August 19:59

        yep Wokingham is tricky http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/payment/

        but you could get a dual card eg Lloyds & at least get some points out of it, if not Amex

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    31 Aug31 August 19:36

    How about booking an expensive, refundable hotel on Hotels.com and then cancelling once the points are safe?

    • harry says:

      31 Aug31 August 19:42

      that’s been mentioned before (and variants)

      risk is: you’ll get black-listed

      but should work in the short term

      nobody likes my ticket idea but it’s 100% legal lol & works fine

      plus it delivers a healthy profit if you try & ‘get’ which artistes are going to be selling out, not that this is the point of course

      • Nick says:

        1 Sep1 September 10:34

        blacklisted by whom?

        I did this (albeit unwittingly) with a different credit card not too long ago.

    • Rob says:

      31 Aug31 August 19:54

      or a refundable flight ……?

      • Marco says:

        2 Sep2 September 13:17

        Hi Rob – do you know any airlines who actually refund refundable flights promptly? Maybe I’ve had bad luck in the past (with BA, VS and QR) but my refundable ticket refunds have always taken several weeks, if not months, to be processed – and that only after several complaints to Customer Relations!

        • Rob says:

          2 Sep2 September 13:27

          BA cancelled and booked online is efficient. Only Emirates ever caused me trouble.

        • Rich says:

          2 Sep2 September 15:32

          Any idea how efficient? I.e. Is it a couple of days, week, longer?

      • Kingdozzy says:

        14 Sep14 September 10:13

        Buy an Amazon giftcard for your whole balance 🙂 Amazon seem to give fast refunds on request. I’m doing that 🙂 BUT if Amazon goes bust in the meantime lol…

    • Mick says:

      1 Sep1 September 04:29

      The funds would be refunded to a closed account. Not sure how you would get your money back

      • Genghis says:

        1 Sep1 September 06:12

        If Amex issued Amex they put the credit on your closed account, send you a statemrnt then you call up to transfer the cash to your bank account. Not too sure about MBNA processes.

• Boris says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:35

  OT: What are the pros and cons of using a Curve Card directly on the underground as a wireless card?

  Is there a good reason why not?

  • Adam says:

    31 Aug31 August 14:52

    I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t. Though, you can use an Amex card on the underground, why would you need/want to use curve?

    • Boris says:

      31 Aug31 August 14:55

      The relevant Amex is not yet blip enabled.

      • Boris says:

        31 Aug31 August 14:55

        And thanks.

      • Mr Dee says:

        31 Aug31 August 16:30

        Using any decent Amex is often better than a visa/mastercard

        • cmcbugg says:

          31 Aug31 August 20:38

          Unless you had the 2.5x DC Mastercard of course 🙁

• biscuiteer says:

  31 Aug31 August 14:50

  Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  I’ve had the Diamond Club card for nearly 7 years.

  What a pisser.

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