There has been much discussion over the past year about what would happen to the UK Based airline bmi and their Frequent Flyer program, bmi Diamond Club, since they are now a subsidiary of Lufthansa.

Last week bmi made some announcements regarding the removal of Business Class from flights from London Heathrow within the UK and to Ireland, as well as some changes to their Diamond Club frequent flyer program.

Today I just received an email from bmi Diamond Club, indicating that my account has been credited with 3000 status miles to make up for the elimination of the Blue Plus tier in their program.

This totally makes sense, as Diamond Club resets your status miles, and your qualifying year every time you cross a new threshold. The threshold for moving from their lowest level of status Blue, to Blue Plus was 3000 miles, so basically with the elimination of the Blue Plus level they are giving you back the 3000 status miles they have taken from your account, and are saying keep collecting to get to the next level, which is Silver.

Below is a copy of the email I received from them today...

Dear Darren

We recently emailed you to let you know about some changes that came into effect on 27 January on all our UK and Ireland flights to and from London Heathrow.

Since you've recently earned Blue Plus status and there are now no additional benefits for Blue Plus members, we've credited your account with 3,000 status miles to help you on your way to becoming a Silver member. You only need to earn 13,000 status miles before the end of your membership year to become a Silver member. You can then take advantage of some great benefits, such as access to business lounges. Read more about our Silver membership benefits.

Also, don't forget to celebrate the launch of our new Flexible Economy fares and to help you reach Silver membership sooner, we're offering you double status and double destinations miles. This offer is available on all UK flights to and from London Heathrow and flights between London Heathrow and both Dublin and Amsterdam from 27 January until 31 March 2010.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the airline, and their frequent flyer program in the months and years to come as rumours of the sale of the airline, or a merger with Lufthansa's Miles and More frequent flyer program swirl around.

• Darren Mak's blog