Diners Club Club Rewards - Using BA-DIners promotion to transfer points from AA and others to BA

I am not sure if this is allowed (since all the rules for the BA mile per point promotion are not published/avaiable to me) but I suggested that this is a strategy to convert up to 50,000 AA miles to BA. The thread from BritishAirways board is:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/000970.html

I have seen such recommendations in the past and I would like to know if someone more knowledgeable/experienced can let everyone know if this is OK. I will be checking with Diners as well, but sometimes you do not want to draw too much attention to these things.

I transferred UA miles to Diners then to BA during last year's Doulbe BA promo without any problems. I see no reason this wouldn't work this year with AA, DL, or UA miles. Here's another relevent thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/004507.html

Yes, called Diners and I confirmed that you can transfer upto 50,000 AA miles to get 50,000 Club Rewards points, which then during promo(until August 31) can be transferred to 50,000 BA miles. I did this last year(and the year before) and the miles showed up no problem and am doing it again this year.

As well, you can also turn upto 50,000 United miles into 50,000 BA miles

Also, upto 50,000 Delta miles to 50,000 BA miles

…both by transferring to Diners and then to BA during promo
.... you can do all three airlines at 50K each for 150,000 BA miles.

A few caveats:
*Must do transfers in 10 K increments, max of 50K per airline
*Must allow upto 45 days for mileage transfer(mine was faster, but I play it safe)
*Must be a Diners Club Member in good standing to transfer

If you do not have Diners and are interested, would be so kind as to use my sponsor code for the on-line application(see link), I would much appreciate it and I will earn a small promo to put towards the Concorde.

24,000 Club Rewards Sponsor code = IKQG5615

https://www.citibank.com/dinersus/mgm/apply/index.htm


Diners is a truly great product that I have had for years and highly recommend it. It offers you 24,000 club rewards points(that can also be put towards BA promo) for the annual fee of $80(2,000 points per month). Also
* Always has person pick up the phone with no wait(no VRU or IVR)
* Primary auto rental insurance(worth it for this alone)
* Up to 62 days to pay
* No pre-set spending limit
* 20% discount cash back at over 1000 restaurants(no special card to show)


As well if you have questions about Diners or the promo e-mail me at omardag@hotmail.com

Cheers!

i would like to move 50K delta miles into my diner's club account, then into ba. several references have been made that the entire transfer can be done electronically, but i have been unable to find any reference to a diners club transfer on the dl web site.
anyone have some advice on doing the transfer? the length of time that i should allocate between the initial withdrawal and the deposit in ba?

The only way I have seen to do it is to call the 800 number listed on the Diner Club miles to points web page. You will get an electronic system which walks you through giving your Delta number, your Diners account, and how many miles you want to transfer. No humans involved.

For UA transfers into Diners, call UA at 800-447-6772. You'll be prompted for a promotion code, which is 15. UA is automated and you won't need to speak with a live person for the transfer.

For Delta, call 866-353-3000, again, it is automated and there is no need to speak with a CSR for the transaction.

For AA, call 800-882-8880 and ask for the transfer, you'll need to speak with a live person. AA will then mail you a certificate which you must fill out and mail to Diners. If you prefer not to call, you may fax in your request to AA at 817-963-7882. Complete a Award Claim Form, found on the backside of your AA statement and use the following for the award code:

For a 10,000 mile transfer, use DC10PTS
For a 20,000 mile transfer, use DC20PTS
For a 50,000 mile transfer, use DC50PTS

Once processed, AA will mail you a certificate as indicated above.

I've submitted transfer requests from all three carriers and they all have posted without any problems. The certificates from AA have arrived within 2 weeks and once mailed to DC, the miles posted by my next statement.

In another post, I asked why BA miles were better than DL or UA, and one answer was that you got the oneworld alliance. So, what is the advantage of transferrubg AA miles, since AA is oneworld - couldn't you do anything with AA that you could do with BA? I do not understand the rationale of this unless you were topping off a ticket with BA and didn't have any other miles to transfer. Since I have a lot of AA miles, I'm thinking I would leave my DL and UA miles where they are so that I have 3 networks instead of 1 if I want to go somewhere. Can't I fly BA with AA miles?

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DtG

I'm moving AA miles because transatlantic first class on BA isn't offered by Aadvantage and business class awards cost fewer miles. It also allows you to combine AA miles (and UA & DL) from family members accounts, either through a single Diners account or the BA household account.

dhacker,
True, one business class seat is less on BA. But if you are getting two biz class transatlantic seats they are equal at 160,000 miles.

[This message has been edited by zipual (edited 06-21-2001).]

You can also order AA Miles-to-Points certs online. I did this and it worked. It may have taken a few more days to process than the cert request I made by phone. You just look up the Diners award code on the AA site and enter it in the box on the online award request form. I'd post links to the right pages on the AA site, but with their idiotic, session-based personalization, the url's aren't usable. Here's the complete list of award codes:

10,000 DC10PTS
20,000 DC20PTS
30,000 DC30PTS
40,000 DC40PTS
50,000 DC50PTS

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by zipual:
True, one business class seat is less on BA. But if you are getting two biz class transatlantic seats they are equal at 160,000 miles.</font>

The prices are equal, but with BA installing flat seats in BC, I'd rather take BA any day!

Trigger happy keyboard today. Apologies.

[This message has been edited by SMessier (edited 06-23-2001).]

Please detail the BA and AA comparison for transatlantic flights. I have never flown BA and am still in a dilemma over whether to move DL and UA miles over to BA - also wondering how much I would need for each kind of flight. Of course any transfer TO AA counts towards lifetime status, but at a 50% loss of miles I am very hesitant.

------------------
DtG

To those of you that have transferred DL miles to DC how long did it take? I transferred 50,000 DL miles on May 4th and they were gone from my account the next day. DC says it takes 6 weeks for DL miles but 2 weeks for AA miles to credit. That does not make sense to me since AA has to snail mail the cert and DL does it electronically.

Last year under this promotion my dilemma was changing my BA address from France to the US. That took over 4 months and they had to back credit the miles.

This year I have a feeling my problem is going to be the DL miles. I still have 2 months so I will not worry yet. This is precisely the reason I transferred the miles as soon as I heard about the BA promotion.

dgordon - The BA chart is available at their web site https://www.britishairways.com/execclub/na/

As an example, to go to India you need fewer miles on BA than you would need if you were using AA miles for the same flights.

What I did find out is that BA uses fewer miles to fly to Tunisia, where I was in the Peace Corps and am interested in visiting next year. - They treat Tunis the same as Europe whereas DL treats it as the Middle East. So, that was enough for me. Off peak, 40,000, peak, 60,000, BC 80,000. So I transferred 40,000 DL miles from my husband's account, and 20,000 DL miles from my daughter's account. Is the 50,000 limit per account. The combined from Delta will be 60,000 but they are from 2 different accounts. Could I transfer from my account as well? Now I have an incentive to bring my daughter's 7300 on UA up to 10,000 and remaining 7000 on DL to 10,000. I never considered these miles that valuable, but they have become so all of a sudden.

------------------
DtG

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by dgordon:
What I did find out is that BA uses fewer miles to fly to Tunisia, where I was in the Peace Corps and am interested in visiting next year. - They treat Tunis the same as Europe whereas DL treats it as the Middle East. So, that was enough for me. Off peak, 40,000, peak, 60,000, BC 80,000. So I transferred 40,000 DL miles from my husband's account, and 20,000 DL miles from my daughter's account. Is the 50,000 limit per account. The combined from Delta will be 60,000 but they are from 2 different accounts. Could I transfer from my account as well? Now I have an incentive to bring my daughter's 7300 on UA up to 10,000 and remaining 7000 on DL to 10,000. I never considered these miles that valuable, but they have become so all of a sudden.
</font>

I'm sure the 50K is per DC account. Also, not sure if Delta in particular would let you use someone else's account for this (DC seems pretty generous about such things usually).

Also, 40K points in an account is enough for a free domestic FC ticket, so that's fairly valuable if you ask me! Next time you need to go somewhere at the last minute, they might come in handy! (This is why i like keeping 25K or 40K points in different accounts for such a last minute trip).

I've got lots of miles in my AA account, my airline of choice, and that is the dilemma. I've about 98,000 in my DL account, and 27,000 in my UA account. So, where to take the miles is the issue. Do you think it is better to leave enough in an account just in case I can't get a ticket on AA, but UA and DL have them. Whereas if there is only 10,000 can't do much with that anyway. My daughter and husband have AA miles as well.

------------------
DtG

My partner and I have a household BA account, and she has a card on my Diners. In addition to the BA double miles deal, am I right in assuming that she could transfer her AA miles into Diners points and that I could then transfer them to My AA account -- just nudging closer to million miler status?

You would lose 50% of the AA miles in the transfer. One AA mile transfers to one Diners Club point. Two Diners Club points transfer to one AA mile. The special promotion right now is with BA only, where one Diners Club point transfers to one BA mile.

How strictly is the 50K limit enforced? A couple of years ago I transferred a big chunk of miles (I cant remember the exact amount but it was around 180K miles) from United to Diners Club to BA. The transfer United-&gt;Diners was done in one transaction as was Diners-&gt;BA.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by dgordon:
I've got lots of miles in my AA account, my airline of choice, and that is the dilemma. I've about 98,000 in my DL account, and 27,000 in my UA account. So, where to take the miles is the issue. Do you think it is better to leave enough in an account just in case I can't get a ticket on AA, but UA and DL have them. Whereas if there is only 10,000 can't do much with that anyway. My daughter and husband have AA miles as well.
</font>

I like having miles in more than one account ... like I said, just in case. Still, that being said, you have tons of DL miles and not a lot of UA miles (not enough for a premium ticket). I'd probably take 20,000 UA miles and 30,000 DL miles (leaving you with 78k, only 2k short of a biz elite trip to Europe or two domestic FC seats, the types of awards I myself would use). But again, that's just me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

BTW, for this promo I started with 80K DL miles. I did the AMEX MR promo for 25K bonus for transferring 100K, then transferred 50K DL to DC then to BA. So, for 100K AMEX MR points I'm really getting in the end 75K DL miles and 50K BA miles. Pretty sweet http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

What I realized today is that I was planning to buy my Toyota Prius with my Starwood AMEX, but I think they take DC. That's by far, the much better deal. Of course, now, I regret not using my DC more. I really hadn't looked into the value of a BA awards ticket as I was so focused on achieving lifetime platinum status with AA. That is still a goal, but BA counting Tunisa the same as Europe is too good to pass up. I may just prepay the car purchase to get those points in my account in time.( I actually have 33,000 in my UA account - hadn't looked at latest statement. I might just take your advice and leave them there - and transfer AA miles from my daughter's or husband's account if I need to transfer. Does anyone know how long it takes for each transfer? DL to DC, and DC to BA?

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DtG

raffy, do you know if the AA certificates have the name of the account holder printed on it ?. I was wondering if i could pull the miles out of my wifes account and put them into my Diners account to send them to BA later

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by raffy:
For UA transfers into Diners, call UA at 800-447-6772. You'll be prompted for a promotion code, which is 15. UA is automated and you won't need to speak with a live person for the transfer.

For Delta, call 866-353-3000, again, it is automated and there is no need to speak with a CSR for the transaction.

For AA, call 800-882-8880 and ask for the transfer, you'll need to speak with a live person. AA will then mail you a certificate which you must fill out and mail to Diners. If you prefer not to call, you may fax in your request to AA at 817-963-7882. Complete a Award Claim Form, found on the backside of your AA statement and use the following for the award code:

For a 10,000 mile transfer, use DC10PTS
For a 20,000 mile transfer, use DC20PTS
For a 50,000 mile transfer, use DC50PTS

Once processed, AA will mail you a certificate as indicated above.

I've submitted transfer requests from all three carriers and they all have posted without any problems. The certificates from AA have arrived within 2 weeks and once mailed to DC, the miles posted by my next statement.</font>

Milesmiles:

Your name does appear on the AA miles-to-points cert. However Diners told me today that they have no problem crediting a cert from AA in my wife's name to my Diners account. Worse case scenario if they are wrong is that we reactivate my wife's Diners card for $80 and do the transfer to her BA account. The BA accounts are linked as a houshold account anyway. The other good news is that Diners has now told me twice that they will credit more than 50k in AA certs if AA will issue them. AA told me when I ordered the first 50k cert that they saw no restriction on their end against ordering multiple 50k miles-to-points certs.

Dhacker,
Thanks for the info , I will give it a try. I guess worse case, I could redeposit the miles. Did you ask for more than 50K from AA ?

Milesmiles, if you complete a AA award claim for the certificate, simply add your name in the area "Certificate Recipient Name, If Different From Member", which is what I did with no problem, just to be safe.

As dhacker noted, the account holders name also appears on the certificate, but it proved to not be a problem in my case.

On another note, the DC account is in my partners name, however, when I transferred the points from DC to BA, I was able to transfer them into my BA account directly, rather than his as it was a Household account.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by PG:
How strictly is the 50K limit enforced? A couple of years ago I transferred a big chunk of miles (I cant remember the exact amount but it was around 180K miles) from United to Diners Club to BA. The transfer United-&gt;Diners was done in one transaction as was Diners-&gt;BA.</font>

I just called the UA number and went through the automated system. It only allowed me to transfer 50,000 miles. I tried entering 100,000 and it said that it exceeded the maximum 50,000 limit. Maybe I will try another 50,000 later.

Hi there. Given the time it takes to transfer points from UA or AA to Diners, what would be the date by which I need to initiate the UA/AA to Diners transfer to have the points in my Diners account in time to transfer them to BA? Thoughts/Experiences?? Thanks.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by ThisFlightNoFuel:
Hi there. Given the time it takes to transfer points from UA or AA to Diners, what would be the date by which I need to initiate the UA/AA to Diners transfer to have the points in my Diners account in time to transfer them to BA? Thoughts/Experiences?? Thanks.</font>

I would do it soon as possible. In my case, I initiated the transfer the day I got confirmation that Diners would have a double BA promotion (so I told UA to transfer to Diners even before the Diners BA promotion started).

I have been looking at this promo with interest but am faced with the same dilemma as dgordon had about giving up AA miles for BA miles.

PG, you said that it costs less miles to go to india on BA than AA but how easy is it to get that award on BA compared to AA (for a non-elite)?

Appreciate your answer since this could be a dealmaker for me.

[This message has been edited by rkjflyer1 (edited 06-28-2001).]

Thanks for the thread. I have completed a transfer of 10000 miles from Delta to Diners Club sucessfully, and then tranferred 35000 points from my Diners Club account to my British Airways Executive Club Account (to add to the 45000 I had there from LAST YEAR'S 1:1 transfer). Then last night I called British Airways and booked two tickets on my first choice itinerary transatlantic with stop-overs in London both ways @ 40000 per ticket off-peak. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif except of course it's only economy class http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by rkjflyer1:
PG, you said that it costs less miles to go to india on BA than AA but how easy is it to get that award on BA compared to AA (for a non-elite)?
</font>

I tried four times for a 100K business class award US-India on BA. I was successful three times, including once a few months ago. On another occasion I could not get any seat on the days I was able to go - no coach/biz/1st were available. I am not elite with either BA or AA, and I did not check availability with AA.

On one occasion out of the three - 3 segments out of 4 were confirmed in business class but one segment was in coach. In the other two, all four segments were in business class.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 06-29-2001).]

Thanks PG. Seems decent enough for me.
Just one more question - How far ahead did u book the award tkts?

Award tickets on BA were booked 1-2 months in advance.

thanks PG

I would not recommend anyone to turn DL miles into DC Club Rewards points right now. It has been over 8 weeks since I made the request with DL and they have yet to show up in my DC account.

A very nice DC rep left me a voice mail today though. She said to fax over a DL statement and she would take care of it first thing tomorrow. For DL miles they do say 6 to 8 weeks so I would count on DL miles at this point for the BA promotion.

Has the withdrawal shown up in your DL account?

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DtG

FWIW - my DL transfer to DC showed up in a couple of weeks. My DC to BA transfer ... that's another story.

dgordon the withdrawal showed up on my DL account on May 4th.

They wouldn't do anything until it had been 8 weeks. Now that 8 weeks have passed DC is being very helpful as usual.

Faxed DC my DL statement last night after hours and by late morning today my DL miles were posted. Also my AA miles posted today and when I arrived home I found my return receipt from DC for the AA miles in my mail box.

Moral of the story. AA miles posted in less than 3 weeks including AA sending me the cert and me sending it to DC. DL miles posted in 8 1/2 weeks with a little push on my end.

So I would say you still have some time to transfer AA but I wouldn't transfer DL at this late stage.

DC claims 6 to 8 weeks for DL miles and 2 weeks for AA miles once the certificate is sent. I received the certificate from AA in less than a week.

The DL miles have been deducted from my daughter's and husband's accounts. Withdrew AA miles from their accounts as well, and put them in the mail today. We'll see how long it takes!

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DtG

Has anybody successfully transferred more than 50K out of DL or AA into Diners ?

I need some help in figuring out whats
going on with my Delta transfer. I initiated
the transfer on Jun 28, but as of date no
miles have been taken out of my delta account.

Should I do the request again , or should
I call Delta, or Diners.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sunil:
I need some help in figuring out whats
going on with my Delta transfer. I initiated
the transfer on Jun 28, but as of date no
miles have been taken out of my delta account.

Should I do the request again , or should
I call Delta, or Diners.</font>

I'd call Delta and see if they know anything and maybe wait a little bit. My transfer took a fair while (well over a week) to finally show as coming out of my Delta account ... now I just have to patiently wait for Diners to get it ...

I transferred 50k SkyMiles around May 31 and they only just showed up in my Club Rewards balance this week. That's about six weeks. If you transferred miles on June 28, give the process another month. If you still haven't transferred DL miles to DC and want to make the BA 2:1 deadline of August 31, I'd advise you to do it this week at the latest.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MileSmiles:
Has anybody successfully transferred more than 50K out of DL or AA into Diners ?</font>

Yes for AA, as of today. I requested 50k by phone a couple months ago which is already credited to my Club rewards account. On June 29th, I tried to request more by phone, but the rep insisted that all awards ordered by phone are assessed a $75 expedite fee. She didn't care that I was not charged previously. So I just entered the codes in the online award request form to transfer 190k more (three separate 50k awards & one 40k). The mileage deductions for these awards hit my account today (13 days later), so I expect to get the certs in the mail soon for forwarding to Diners.

I also ordered a miles-to-points award from my wife's account using the online form in early June. That took 12 days before the deduction showed up.

Diners posted points from the first cert very quickly. I assume my wife's cert has already posted, but I need to call or wait for my statement next week to be sure. Diners has confirmed that they will post any AA certs I send them from either of our accounts, so I should be safe now that AA has issued all the awards.

That is very strange that you were asked for a $75 fee when you weren't asking to expedite it. I faxed the one deducting from my husband's account. I called to deduct from my daughter's account a few days later. When hers was deducted and his was not we called (he needed to be on the phone) and it was deducted almost immediately and sent out. Got them both within about a week and sent them in. I'm waiting for them to show up at Diner's so I can transfer them. Still waiting for DL which they say takes longer. Any suggestions for large purchases with the Diner's Club. I'm thinking I should buy an expensive item at Nieman-Marcus and return it after the miles have posted. Found out that the car dealer I'm buying my new car from doesn't take DC. Darn!

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DtG

FWIW - I *did* expedite my AA certificate and the charge was $50 not $75 and I received the certificate the next day via FedEx. Regular processing, even via phone request, is no charge. Something is not right about that $75 bit.

I knew it was probably wrong at the time, since I had previously ordered one without a hassle or a fee. I think this rep just didn't know how to handle a miles-to-points award and so she just started lying. She was very stubborn about it. I just decided to do the online request form because I didn't feel like navigating through the endless telephone menu options to get another live person on the line. Ordering online does seem to take longer than a telephone request before they process the award.

My DL to DC transfer was initiated less than a month ago, it took about a week to deduct from my DL account, and I talked to DC today and checked my balance and they were (surprisingly) already posted!

Is it possible to transfer Diners club rewards points in my account to someone else's frequentflyer account. Has anyone done this?

thanks
venkat

venkat, I was able to transfer all the DC points from my partners DC account into my BA account, however, our BA account is a "Household" account. Initially, DC refused to do so until I told them that it was a household account.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rtpflyer:
Thanks for the thread. I have completed a transfer of 10000 miles from Delta to Diners Club sucessfully, and then tranferred 35000 points from my Diners Club account to my British Airways Executive Club Account (to add to the 45000 I had there from LAST YEAR'S 1:1 transfer). Then last night I called British Airways and booked two tickets on my first choice itinerary transatlantic with stop-overs in London both ways @ 40000 per ticket off-peak. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif except of course it's only economy class http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif </font>

Out of curiosity, did you book your award travel on the BA flight out of CLT?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
Out of curiosity, did you book your award travel on the BA flight out of CLT?</font>
Yes, as a matter of fact I am leaving from, and returing to, CLT. Why? I was prepared to use IAD, or BWI (or even PHL) if necessary, but the CLT flight was available.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rtpflyer:

Yes, as a matter of fact I am leaving from, and returing to, CLT. Why? I was prepared to use IAD, or BWI (or even PHL) if necessary, but the CLT flight was available.</font>

I'm just curious how difficult it is to get awards on the CLT flight, that's all http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I'm probably going to transfer 100K+ for eventual use on a FC ticket ...

By reading the responses, it would appear Delta, UAL & American miles will work for this conversion process. Does anyone have experience with usingany other airline FF miles for conversion to BA via Diner's?

UA, AA, and DL are the only airlines that allow conversion of miles to DC Club Rewards points.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
I'm just curious how difficult it is to get awards on the CLT flight, that's all http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
</font>
I had no problem at all for Economy leaving the weekend before Easter weekend and returning the weekend after Easter weekend. I'm attending an event on the island of Jersey over Easter with stopovers in London for sightseeing both ways. BA is the simplest way I could think of to get to Jersey with my accumulated frequent flyer points. Since their direct competitor on that route is USAirways I was considering whether to use our USairways systemwide upgrades for the trip and make other arrangements for the LGW-JER-LGW segment, but I eventually decided to use the systemwides on a different trip instead.

I know this has been discussed
previously...but I am not completely
clear...

Will I be able to transfer miles from
my DC to my sister's BA account...we
both have the same last name...but
they are not a household account.

I think you can call DC and ask them. Anyway, I am pleased to say that the DL miles that were deducted from my daughter's account on 7/3 and from my husband's account on 7/2 are now in my DC account. They will be transferred to BA on Monday when the dept opens. I am waiting for my AA certs to post. Unfortunately the DC web-site only shows your statement and does not keep a running tally like other credit card companies or mileage programs.

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DtG

[This message has been edited by dgordon (edited 07-21-2001).]