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LAST CALL: bmi Diamond Club closes on Wednesday. Got any unclaimed miles?

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Long term readers of Head for Points will have lived through the acquisition of bmi British Midland (as was) by British Airways and the integration of Diamond Club into British Airways Executive Club.

If you were not taking your frequent flyer miles so seriously a couple of years ago, it is possible that you may have had some BMI miles which you had forgotten about or which you assumed had expired.

This is not the case.  They were frozen and are still accessible using your old Diamond Club credentials at www.diamondclub.org

Wednesday 30th November is the last day to move miles from Diamond Club across to British Airways Executive Club.  Please do one last check to ensure your family accounts are empty.

I know what you’re thinking – “Rob, do you seriously think that I would have forgotten about Diamond Club miles in one of my accounts?“

And yet, I originally started this campaign in the Summer because I got this email:

I used to have the old BMI Diamond Card but forgot about it, and all the points I had. It turned out that I had a balance of over 40000 BMI points which I could convert to Avios. I was under the impression that these points were to be expired as I had not used the account in five years, and I thought the scheme had closed! 

I first wrote about this back in August.  This is what turned up in the comments section that day:

Not as exciting as your emailer, but I’m now 300 avios better off!

I’m 50 Avios better off! Every little help

I was sure mine had automatically transferred, but I logged in and I’m 3,000 points better off now!

Thanks for the reminder about BMI Diamond Club. I’d transferred about 250K miles a few years ago after the acquisition but was still using the credit card. Just found another 65,000 logging in today!

So glad I read this post, I’m now 27,500 avios points better off! Thanks

When I log in to the diamond club website it does show that I have quite a few thousnad miles.

So …. there do seem to be quite a lot of people out there who unknowingly still have some Diamond Club miles sitting around.  You only have a few days to ensure that you don’t lose any points you may have forgotten about.

If you think that you may have once had a bmi Diamond Club account and have a record of your account number somewhere, it is worth taking a look at diamondclub.org to see what is there.  Any balance can be moved to BA via ‘Combine My Avios’.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (35)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • James67 says:
    27 Nov27 November 05:06

    Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
    and never brought to mind…we’ll tak a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne 🙂

  • Waribai says:
    27 Nov27 November 07:44

    RIP BMI. I actually had three accounts two of which I had zeroed out by July 2015 . BMI wrote to me a couple of months ago and said they had closed them due to dormancy. Had they had a few miles still in them, not sure if they would gave kept them open?!

  • Mike says:
    27 Nov27 November 08:01

    I just checked and it said the a/c was closed due to being dormant, no activity for 12 months

  • Silvergirl says:
    27 Nov27 November 08:12

    I have Diamond miles and am trying to do this but get an error on the BA website:
    ‘Combine my Avios is not available at the moment. Please try again later’.
    I have been trying a few times in the last 24h. Any thoughts – are others getting the same error?

    • Jimmy says:
      27 Nov27 November 08:23

      Yes do it through the ba site. As I has the same issue

      • the real harry says:
        27 Nov27 November 08:26

        yep you need to log into BAEC & pull them in from BMI

        • Silvergirl says:
          27 Nov27 November 08:29

          That’s is what I am doing – I get that error on the BAEC site. Does it work for you?

          • Rob al says:
            27 Nov27 November 08:58

            I remember reading something about household accounts not being able to use combine my Avios but I can’t find it now.

          • Red Alan says:
            27 Nov27 November 12:20

            This is the problem I’ve always had. Just ring up BA, they can manually transfer the points across.

    • AJ says:
      3 Dec3 December 22:11

      I know the deadline has passed, but it was a web browser issue that did that sort of thing to me – for years and they never fixed it. Always failed in Safari but worked in Firefox!

  • Silvergirl says:
    27 Nov27 November 08:36

    Ok I got it to work on Chrome. Safari didn’t work..

    • James67 says:
      27 Nov27 November 08:45

      In most cases technical issues reported on HFP usually relate to safari or some other iOS problem. Best course of action is just to try chrome or IE to see if that resolves the problem.

  • Rob al says:
    27 Nov27 November 08:57

    I just get this:

    Your Diamond Club account has been closed due to inactivity and any remaining miles forfeited. This is in accordance with section 8.3 of the Diamond Club Terms and Conditions. 8.3 Members who have not recorded any activity with bmi, its Diamond Club partners, or made a redemption with the same parties and other promotional third parties, for a 12 month period, from the date of their last recorded activity on the Diamond Club database, shall be deemed dormant. If no claim is made on any residual Destinations Miles on that member’s account, membership may be terminated after a further 12 months and all remaining miles forfeited.

    • dee says:
      29 Nov29 November 16:40

      I have the same error and estimate I have thousands of destination miles left to transfer. No joy in talking to BA and all the diamond club numbers are dead. Can anyone help? did you manage to have any success?

      • Rob says:
        29 Nov29 November 17:28

        My wife has this as well – but not any other family members with dormant accounts (mine has been active). Not sure why this is.

      • Alan says:
        29 Nov29 November 23:51

        Just call BA – by all accounts they’ve actually been very good at sorting these login issues!

  • the real harry says:
    27 Nov27 November 09:05

    O/T woohoo
    BAEC shopping portal
    Avios – Bonus for collecting with new partner 0 1,000

    from 4th October transaction 🙂

  • jonboy73 says:
    27 Nov27 November 11:16

    just received my new mbna visa card through the post. Only got a visa card, so I take it the amex has gone? Is there any point in keeping this card? does it have any benefits/points in some other scheme for example?

    • Alan says:
      27 Nov27 November 11:29

      I was offered zero so just closed the account.

    • EwanG says:
      28 Nov28 November 11:13

      @jonboy73

      I too received my new Visa card on Saturday and called MBNA to ask if the old Duamon Club AmEx was still able to be used – I have registered it for the upcoming Shop Small promo.
      MBNA confirmed the AmEx is still active and can still be used up to the card expiry.

      I also spoke with the MBNA new accounts team to see if the could give me a card with earning opportunities rather than the no-benefit Visa card. I asked specifically about the rewards MasterCard some had received. All they could offer was one of the generally available cards on their website i.e. Airline or Intu which I am not interested in.

      I will use my old AmEx next month and then close.

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