American Express Membership Rewards - Amex vs. Diner's Club

Anyone have a preference one vs. other for daily primary use? is Diner's Club really that limited in who takes it? Their reward program seems better.

Originally posted by erlftex:
Anyone have a preference one vs. other for daily primary use? is Diner's Club really that limited in who takes it? Their reward program seems better.

AMEX, Yes, Yes it is.

If your gonna use an AMEX, use the Sheraton Stapoints AMEX.


Mac



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Via con Dios!

Amex is accepted by more retailers and restaurants. That's the only advantage. Amex and DC are accepted equally by all travel & lodging providers, and DC's insurance, Club Rewards program and customer service are all better.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, erlftex.

The issue you have raised, whether AMEX is better than DC, has been discussed many times. You might want to take some time and check the old threads (set the "show topics from" window to about a year, or search for "Diners" in the AMEX forum and vice-versa) to get the various views.

What it boils down to, in the end, is that it depends on what you are looking for and what your travel/use habits are.

For instance, Diners Club is primary insurance on rental cars (which means they pay first) as opposed to most of the other cards that require you to have your insurance carrier pay first, with them picking up the deductable, which would add to your claims history, and can cause your regular car insurance premium to skyrocket, or your insurance to even be cancelled in some circumstances. If you do a lot of rental cars, this could be very important to you; if you seldom or never rent cars, it's meaningless to you.

So, check it out.

I have the AMEX Membership Rewards Gold Card now - and 130,000 rewards points. I'd like to know if I changed to the No-Fee Sheraton/Starwood AMEX card, can I transfer my points to Starwood? If so, at what rate? That would be a nice perk, I'd think.

Personally, I think the AMEX Starpoints card is overrated ...

Everyone seems to think the "25% bonus" is the greatest thing, but seeing that you only get that on 20,000 point transfers, I really don't find it all that valuable a benefit. Credit cards are not my primary mile/point earning tools, they are secondary and are used mostly for topping off an account for a specific award, and for that, DC is the best card because you can top off all the major US airlines and all the major US hotel chains, which is not the case for the Starpoints card or the AMEX MR program.

If you spend a lot of money on credit cards (and AMEX is an option for that spending) and those credit card points are your primary points towards an award, then maybe it would be more valuable.

Depending on your spending habits, the AMEX Gold Rewards Plus card should also be looked at. If one of the MR airlines is your primary carrier, that card could earn you a lot of points with the 50% bonus on partner spending.

I'm a FF credit card program "Wanderer" now. I've got sort of a unique situation - where we live in Saudi Arabia and therefore using MR airlines (at least as primary carriers) is difficult. The airlines that do fly out of here (ex: BA or CX) are not on the MR list. So AMEX MR isn't the best thing for me. Also, MR points are hard to change to useable BA miles - lose lots in conversion. For this reason, primarily, I'm looking at other options to collect miles when I use the card. DC or AMEX Starpoints would help out there.

Wanderer ~ No, you can't really switch your points effectively. The MR exchange rate for hotel points is pretty crappy, your 130,000 MR points would become 43,000 Starwood points ... not a good rate. Marriott would probably be a better choice, you'll get 130,000 Marriott points for that amount. BA and CX are both OneWorld carriers, and unfortunately there are no OneWorld carriers in the program (do you have the same carriers we do to choose from?).

Anyway, I would still propose that DC would be your best choice, especially considering the 2:1 conversions they've offered for the past few years on BA (hoping of course that they continue to offer that promotion in the future).

Beckles - I'm a member of the US AMEX MR program, so yes - my choices are same as yours. Like you, I'm also thinking DC is the way to solve this problem of AMEX points. Appreciate your info and help.

Diners when you can use it!

More/better airlines to convert into.

Better discount dining program.

Promotions for 1.1 airline mile conversions.

I always use DC for car rentals and their dining program. Otherwise I use my starwood AMEX. The fact that I can transfer my husband's starpoints to my account so that we get enough miles together to convert 20,000 to 25,000 is a nice perk. That it could top off other tickets is nice, although I don't have that immediate need. Seems like there are like 26 different airlines. What airlines are NOT included???
My DC card - after the free 12,000 miles is waived because I have a citigold account. I hardly use my citibank AA cards except of course in those establishments (including the US govt when buying US savings bonds). Gratefully those fees are waived too.

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DtG

Obviously, the great thing about Diners is that you can use it to add points and/or miles to virtually any hotel or airline program. For whatever reason, Amex doesn't do business with the biggies (Mileage Plus and AAdvantage). The disavantage is that it is not accepted everywhere.

Your needs/situation will determine which card is better for you.

For many frequent flyers like Beckles, Diners Card works out better since many of its benefits outweight the annual fee; just primary CDW benefit alone worth the fee. I came close to signing up for the Diners Card.

But those who are either grounded http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif or less frequent flyers, no annual fee AmEx Optima might be better choice.

Each person should evaluate his/her situation and determine the best card for himself/herself.

My two cents...

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