Diners Club is ending the current Restaurant Savings Programs. They used to have their own program, the past few years it’s been outsourced to iDine aka Rewards Network.
In short, the Diners Club card has come with iDine Prime which offered 20% cash rebates on participating restaurans (but for the past year just 10%, and some restaurants only 5%).
The cashback iDine program otherwise comes with a fee, Diners Club covers that, although it also means that you can’t get iDine miles for dining purchases made with the card.
Of course, if you use iDine linked to a mileage program 10 or more times in a year you earn 10 miles per dollar — which isn’t as good as a 20% rebate, but is better than a 10% rebate. And that’s free.
So it may be good riddance to the restaurant savings program. You’ll be able to sign your Diners Club card up for a free mileage earning program. Use the card at restaurants 10 times in a year and you’ll earn 10 miles per dollar (as long as that earning ratio lasts…).
Diners Club is promising some new unspecified new benefit. It would be great if that new benefit was an improvement but with all the recent negative changes to the card I start off skeptical.
The other issue he doesn’t address is the value of time. For a $90 cell phone with no insurance, replacement after a loss is as simple as walking into a store and plunking down $90; done. With insurance, there are police reports to file and forward to the insurance company, adjustors to talk to, paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. And in the meantime you probably had to front the $90 anyway in order to get a new phone quickly. For anything short of a major loss, the value of one’s time spent collecting a payout (even on a low income) further offsets the benefit of insurance.