Are you interested in knowledge alone or knowledge + credentials?

Knowledge alone:
http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

Knowledge + credentials:
My view is same as the cat :-) with a little inclination on U of L colleges.

Unless you want to work as a full-time academic, take an MBA. You'll have wider learning, more satisfaction, build a network and have more resulting options as a result. The Durham MBA is quite academic: take that.

What's your preferred learning style? You'd have very different learning experiences in class vs. online/distance.

Online/distance MBAs will obviously have far less face-to-face time with your tutors and fellow students. This could be as little as 1 week per year or less.

Whereas I expect the UoL colleges will be mainly taught face-to-face. I might put Queen Mary at the top of the list. Firstly, the course will be taught in class. Secondly, Queen Mary has the quality stamps of both Russell Group membership and being a University of London college.

I would put Kingston lower on the list than Birkbeck and Strathclyde.

However, I agree with Duncan that an MBA would give you a much less specialised learning experience than an PhD. Are there any part-time MBAs you could add to the list?

2. No career change needed anytime soon
3. Not too keen on salary boost or No ROI concerns

I'd advise not pursuing an MBA before you've fleshed out your career goals some more. It's noble to learn for learning's sake - but the real endpoint of an MBA is significant career advancement. Without a sense of where you want to end up, you may as well save the money and use your time to read books, watch TED talks, and go to conferences.

That said, which online programs are you looking at?

Good advice.

Kingston does have one advantage: the teaching is done at weekends.

Also look at the Doctorate in Professional Studies at King's College London. That is a top-50 university worldwide, with the UK's highest doctoral completion rate.

Thanks for sharing your views.
The online MBA that I have in the list are Durham, Bradford and Aston. My study preference is flexible, independent and self directed. I don't mind group activities though but not an essential. I have done few distance mode courses and I am comfortable with it.

My long term goal is move into academia when money is not a big criteria - sort of retiring from the bizz world to pursue higher goals. I guess there is a good demand for people with 25+ years of industry consulting experience with DBA/PhD in Mgt/Bizz from well-known unis. I don't have concrete example to support this idea. Not sure if MBA would be sufficient for this.

Kingston seems good with weekend courses, does the ex-polytech image matter? They are not in any ranking as well but they are AMBA accredited. University of London could be more respectable in the academia? Basically I am looking for some sort of balance in industry and academia at my price range. Still open for MBA (rounded option), DBA (more structured/applied) or PhD (very specific and pure academic).

Very good discussion here, it will help you clear the fog ..

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/education-schools/CAR_BUE/304398-12988538