Diners Club — the original credit card, and once upon a time one of the real leading rewards cards for road warriors — has been closed to new applications for years. It’s back!
There are still some strategic uses for the card. It’s a chip and pin MasterCard whose points transfer to a variety of airline and hotel programs, some of them unique. But the card isn’t what it once was, and I don’t think worth the price. Still, it’s intriguing and a welcome development that it is once again available for new cardmembers.
There are two versions of the card.
The ‘Premier’ card has a $95 annual fee and earns one point per dollar on spend.
The ‘Elite’ card has a $300 annual fee and offers 3x earning at gas, grocery, and drug stores. Those are interesting category bonuses, but they come at a big annual fee cost
Both cards come with the Diners Club lounge access program and primary collision damage protection on rental cars and no foreign transaction fees.
The illustrious history of Diners Club
Diners Club was the first charge card as we think of them today, founded nearly 65 years ago.
When I first became active as a business traveler, and engaged in miles and points, it was a unique tool. Acceptance was much more limited than Visa, MasterCard, or American Express. But I always wanted to use Diners Club wherever it was accepted because of the value of the points and the features of the card.
I found the old ’60 days to pay’ benefit of really unique value — run up your expenses, you’re going to submit them to your company’s accounting department for reimbursement, and you have plenty of time to get that expense check back and cashed before you have to pay of the card. The float was unparalleled.
In 2004 the US card gained widespread acceptance by striking a deal with MasterCard to use their payments network. But the lower interchange fees provided by MasterCard meant that the rich benefits were going to get dialed back to offset the reduced revenue from each transaction. Net net the tradeoff wasn’t worth it for the consumer, despite being able to use the card anywhere.
Up until 2005, Diners Club was a great card. It gave you an outstanding rewards program on top of the two full billing cycles to pay, free iDine Prime (20% back or more at most participating restaurants) membership, concierge services, and primary collision coverage for rental cars.
Diners Club was cool. It was the choice for CIA covert ops.
Value started getting pulled from the card. The end of two billing cycles to pay and increased foreign currency transaction fees (as was standard for MasterCard).
Club Rewards points transfers got squeezed by exclusive deals airlines and hotels did with other credit card companies.
I stopped recommending this card at the end of 2005, so explained that I would be keeping mine.
Back in 2006 the Diners Club card eliminated restaurant benefits, which struck me as absurd.
We used to see annual summer 100% transfer bonuses to British Airways. That dropped to 50% for awhile. And in recent times that’s been down to 30%.
In fact they used to do plenty of bonuses back in the day, and those are rare now. (They even had nice transfer bonuses to airlines they sadly no longer partner with.)
And then the card became more or less moribund. With Citibank selling the franchise they stopped taking new cardmembers.
Five years ago I commented on an outstanding global Diners Club ad campaign that I hoped Bank of Montreal’s acquisition of the card from Citibank would bring it back to life.
But nothing happened!
Value of Diners Club Points Today
Diners Club has a bunch of airline transfer partners. A few of them are obscure or unique: British Airways, Delta, Korean (Chase isn’t the only one that can get you Korean Air first class awards!), Air Canada, EVA Airways, SAS, South African, Thai, Alaska, El Al, Frontier, Hawaiian, Icelandair, Southwest, and Virgin Atlantic.
Points also transfer at odd ratios to Best Western, Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, and Starwood. These are generally less of a value than transfers to airline miles.
And they also transfer to Amtrak.
My favorite things here are that they transfer points to British Airways (like everyone else’s points do!), Korean (like Chase, for Korean’s own first class awards), Air Canada Aeroplan (best Star Alliance partner, shared with American Express Membership Rewards), and Alaska Airlines (great for Emirates and Cathay Pacific awards).
Alaska is a unique partner here — Chase, American Express, and Citibank points don’t transfer to Alaska. The only strong transferrable points program that transfers to Alaska is Starwood Preferred Guest.
I love having oddball partners like Thai, SAS, and South African. Not many people will find a lot of value in those, but the few who do will think them lifesavers.
On the whole I consider Diners Club’s transferrable points partners to be better than Citibank’s easily.
Compared to Chase, I like Chase transfer partners better for Star Alliance, the same for oneworld, and Diners better for Skyteam (because of Delta) and non-aligned (Alaska).
Compared to American Express, I like American Express transfer partners better for Star Alliance and oneworld and Diners better for Skyteam (because of Korean) and non-aligned (Alaska).
Where Diners really falls down is that Diners Club points do not transfer as quickly as American Express or Chase points, and that’s a real drawback when you want to book an award.
Should You Consider This Card?
I kept the card for a long time because of the primary collision damage waiver benefit on rental cars. It was also an early card issued as chip and pin (though no foreign transaction fees was new — so despite being chip and pin I did not want to use it abroad).
I would rather earn Chase points — and for that matter American Express and Starwood points. Chase and Amex points generally transfer more quickly than Diners Club points do. And Starwood has more transfer partners than Diners Club does.
And there are plenty of other cards now that earn faster — with signup bonuses (Diners Club doesn’t currently have any) and spend category bonuses (you have to spend $300 in fees to get category bonuses).
Furthermore, Chase Sapphire Preferred now has primary collision coverage.
I dropped Diners Club from my wallet about 18 months ago and don’t see myself bringing it back given the current value proposition. But some will find this useful, and more competition is certainly good. There’s also a real emotional connection to the card for road warriors and frequent flyer enthusiasts of a certain age.
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Gary, where are you getting a $900 annual fee for the Elite card? The DC website says it’s $300.
typo, fixed
While not a particularly extensive list, it seems the $95 annual fee could be worthwhile to some with the Primary CDW and Airport Lounge access.
Isn’t it a junk card for global use (3%+ non-US usage fee) or did they fix this?
@Hillrider – Did you read the post? He states clearly that there is no foreign transaction fee.
with $300 instead of $900 AF, do you recommend the card?
This card was one of the premier cards used by Flyertalkers back in the day. When they started charging a fee to move points to an airline, that was it for me. I won’t give Diners Club my click on the above link. Why bother.
@dhammer53 , how much is the fee for the transfer?
@will that was just a typo and personally i would not
@dhammer53 just the tax recovery fee, amex charges one too
Anyone know which credit bureau is pulled? I’m in CA.
Cool to have it back, I like the quirkiness of the card, though some benefits like the Brazil airport shuttles have faded, the lounge access has decent coverage and they have fairly regular transfer bonuses for some airlines.
I hope my existing card drops the foreign transaction fee and then it will be awesome for Europe.
Very interesting…..if I was doing MS at a drugstore with SPG to get JAL to book Emirates outside US I would be earning 1.25………with the Diner’s I would earn 3X at the drugstore and then I could convert them to SPG at a .6 rate ending up with 1.8 versus 1.25………Am I calculating correctly then this could be a good deal as I don’t have the “old” 5X drugstore card??……….
Jeff, from your previous experience, can you get category bonus from international drugstore, gas station and grocery purchase? Thanks
Diner’s Club could go thru another incarnation, as the US and Canada card issuer is Bank of Montreal, but the international payments processor is Discover Card. Since Discover is constantly trying to get more cards in more wallets, it stands to reason that eventually Discover will buy all the rights of Diner’s Club. Citibank supposedly wanted too much for Diner’s and that’s why the business was sold in pieces. But with all the different issuers, it is hard to have all the cards offering the same features.
Hopefully it does happen, as it was a very good card to have, when Citibank controlled the whole experience.
I’ve had the “Carte Blanche” version for a very long time, though mine, too, has been in the drawer for years. I just looked at the website and strangely they still have that version, which they call “Professional” (I always found that weird). That one DOES carry a foreign transaction fee, despite the higher annual fee. Very frustrating and silly. Time to call them and discuss this…
when i called customer service last week they told me insurance is n longer primary. That was a great benefit which if it does not exist anymore…..
@richard the card website for both versions of the card list the benefit as primary
I might consider as soon as they tempt me with a respectable bonus. Until then, nah.
do the names have to match when transferring diners club to Alaska airlines?
Reconsideration line number?
For Bank of Montreal?
Diner’s club number? Now Bank of Montreal? They seem to only have one number to call and then that line has no visibility on an application………
Does anyone know if you can link your rewards account from your new personal card to your existing rewards account with a Corporate Card? I have an SPG AMEX for personal use but have been users Diners in its various iterations for the past 10 years as a corporate card. May be useful to pool all the spend into a single ClubRewards account… I know I can just call them but I thought it would be useful to post for others who are Corporate Diners Club users.
@tim. Tim said,
Anyone know which credit bureau is pulled? I’m in CA.
They pull TU 99 percent of time. Ex sometimes.
I think Diners just dropped Korean Air from their transfer partners list. I can’t find it any more.
AM I missing something here ? Applications are still NOT being accepted
@Ghosterider – this was written in september when applications were open
Great info here!
I too had an emotional attachment as this was one of my first cards .
It was “the” cool card to have back in the day.
But the price/benefit ratio just does not add up any more.
Calling now to not renew .
A tad sad!
Thanks for all the info and advice .
Yeah, the one thing that keeps me from using the card is the Foreign transaction fee. I just checked their website and they have once again halted new applications. Not exactly sure what is going on. Seems more than bizarre that since BoM purchased Diners they’ve been treating it like some Google Beta product. Almost seems like they’d be happy if all the customers just closed their accounts so they could just discontinue the card once a for all.
I’ve also sent them feedback regarding this – still having a foreign transaction fee; especially for a Travel card, is just astounding. All their competition – Discover, Capital One, Barclay, Chase, AMEX, Citi and many others have long ago eliminated this fee. I don’t get it.
Just closed my account. Horrible company with rude customer service. Unfriendly and difficult to navigate website. The only reason I still had them was for “primary car rental insurance coverage”. Well now the Ritz Carlton VISA has that, so good bye Diner’s Club. I thought their fee was a waste of money.
Diners club has one of the worst corporate interface… difficult to use and the rewards program is sub par. Would not recommend.
What am I missing? It say there’s 0% Foreign transaction fee on Premier and Elite. Plus, for $95 annual fee (Premier) and $35 additional card, it seems to be a steal to access the airport lounges in US and internationally. Plus, it covers ‘bumper to bumper’ collision damage, buyers protection for 90 days, etc.
Don’t see where they are taking apps. I’m already diners club cardholder and you are right. It’s been many years. I would like the elite. But sadly. The apps are. Not open yet.
The lounge benefit is not really that useful–they are often in international terms not domestic ones and usually in the ones I am not flying out of. I have been a cardholder for 13 years and have not once visited a Diner’s Club lounge. The rest of the benefits are just average and rewards program a bit less than average.
I’ve had Diners Club for decades at a cost of $95 per year. I keep it for two main reasons:
1. It offers Primary CDW on car rentals. The drawback is the 3% foreign transaction fee but in the US, it is good as other cards only offer Secondary CDW to one’s personal auto insurance. However, I have had no experience of navigating an actual claim but if they rely on MasterCard’s, I’ll stick to using American Express for car rentals with the per rental premium to make it Primary.
2. International lounge access. Apart from airports where there are entire terminals dominated by a carrier, this is the “poor man’s Priority Lounge access”. Not only is it completely unlimited but one can bring in guests for $30. When you have a few hours layover, it is a lifesaver. You can use the Air France Premier lounge in BOS, for example, even if it means walking across to the next terminal, it’s worthwhile.
I believe Diner’s Club car rental coverage is now secondary rather than primary-at least as recently as October 1st , 2019.
I just recently reviewed the card member agreement and it clearly shows secondary car rental insurance coverage now.
My annual fee got charged and looks like I need to transfer those remaining points and cancel it! The only reason I had kept the card was for primary auto insurance coverage.
Is that a Premier or Professional Diners Club card that changed their car rental coverage? I have the Professional and it looks like it still had primary CDW.