Diners Club Club Rewards - Paying Annual Fee with Points

I didn't feel like shelling out $95 again for DC so I called Club Rewards and they told me I could use 8000 points to pay for it - so I did. I'm not sure how people value points, so I'm hoping it wasn't a dumb move.

Even without the benefit of promotions 8,000 points = 8,000 miles on most partner airlines. Of course, with the benefit of the current BA promotion 8,000 points = 12,000 BA miles.

Did you try and get a retention bonus (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/diners-club-club-rewards/458240-retention-bonus.html)? I got a 10,000 point retention bonus this year, so in effect they gave me 10,000 points for my $95, which I think is a very good deal.

I blew it.:(

I blew it.:(1) Now you'll know for next year to ask. :)

2) Who says you can't call retention and ask anyway? ;)

I blew it.:(

If you're a corporate card holder, I'm not sure you blew it. How much value would you have gotten out of BA miles? Do you fly BA enough to leverage those miles or turn them into something meaningful?

Also, I'm not sure if you can get a retention bonus as a corporate cardholder?? I think Citi knew that we were essentially locked into their product, so they have no need to reward us for "retention". Or is the retention part of the points program, in which case it may have worked...

All in all, I use points to cover the fee every year and I see it as nothing but positive. Like I said, I use it for corporate expenses, so it is just used as part of the equation by which getting points make sense. It means that all spend on my corporate card above the points needed to pay to cover this fee is free money.

Just some thoughts.

Do you fly BA enough to leverage those miles or turn them into something meaningful?


No need to ever fly on BA to use Executive Club miles, because they can be redeemed for travel on any OneWorld alliance carrier or other BA partners including Alaska Airlines.

No need to ever fly on BA to use Executive Club miles, because they can be redeemed for travel on any OneWorld alliance carrier or other BA partners including Alaska Airlines.

But the OP was talking about leveraging 8k points. Can you leverage 12k miles (resulting from trading bonus) to purchase an all-airline OW ticket? I thought you could only buy RT points ticket directly from the airline you have the points with...

But the OP was talking about leveraging 8k points. ...

I don't think anyone has claimed that 12,000 miles alone is suficient for an award, although it is in few circumstances. I don't read JerryFF's post to mean that 8,000 was his entire Club Rewards balance. If I correctly understand the subsequent discussion, the point is that he might have obtained a retention bonus by paying $95 with money, and that the points were actually worth 1.5x due to the BA transfer offer.

You can redeem BA miles for travel on any partner airline, including all OneWorld members. There are different redemption charts for various circumstances as explained here:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ecspendlanding/public/en_us

See, for example, the One partner airline only (not British Airways) chart would apply if you wanted to redeem for a round trip operated by AA or AK. See also this thread for a brief discussion of the pros and cons of redeeming BA miles for domestic travel on AA:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/diners-club-club-rewards/1039185-aa-bonus-vs-ba.html

To be honest, I agree with SantaClaraCyms that using points to pay your fee is worth it. Although my annual rewards program fee is $75 so I use around 6500 points to pay my fee each year. Not sure why there's a difference in the fees... maybe you can call and negotiate that, or at least say that you've heard others have lower fees and see what they say.