Diners Club Club Rewards - Diners Club joins with MasterCard in Australia

Diners Club members in Australia can now have a joint account with Master Card. See http://www.dinersclub.com.au/personal_mastercard.htm

I wonder how this fits with Diners Club's links with Discover.

I wonder how this fits with Diners Club's links with Discover.

Diners Club is a franchise. This was obscured for a few decades because Citibank owned both the network operator Diners Club International, and the franchises in many markets. Citi sold the network to Discover, but it is still the franchise holder in Australia. I assume their contract with Diners Club International permits this, just as it permitted them to exit the Diners Club network entirely in Canada and the USA. The Australian rewards structure gives the cardholder ample incentive to use the Diners network whenever accepted.

It will be interesting to see if this dual card approach spreads to the other markets where Citi is still the franchise holder.