MilesBuzz! - What to do with Diners Club reward points???

We have about 24,000 Diners Club points and are considering transferring them to our British Airways account, but is this the best to do with these points? Also are British airways miles easy to use from Chicago? Thankyou to all the experts out there on flyertalk!!!!!

BA miles are EXTREMELY easy to use out of Chicago because you can redeem BA miles for travel on their partner American Airlines, and of course ORD is a major AA hub.

The BA transfer is the best thing to do with DC Club Rewards points and the only thing I've ever done with mine. As you earn two Club Rewards points with every dollar spent, plus initiation and retention bonuses from DC, it's like getting double miles and then some.

Is the one-to-one transfer of DC points to BA miles a promotional offer or has that always been the case?

If it is a promotional offer, how long until the offer ends and the transfer becomes two points to one mile like the rest of the airlines?

Thanks in advance!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FrankoBonanzo:
Is the one-to-one transfer of DC points to BA miles a promotional offer or has that always been the case?

If it is a promotional offer, how long until the offer ends and the transfer becomes two points to one mile like the rest of the airlines?</font>

Diners has been having this same bonus promo with BA for the past several summers. It seems like many of us sit on pins and needles each spring waiting to see if they will offer it again (and so far they have). This summer's promotion will end this Aug 31 at which point the redemption rate will be cut in half (the regular 2 Club Rewards pts = 1 BA mile).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tatmtr7:
Also are British airways miles easy to use from Chicago</font>

In case if you are interested here is the conversion chart for redeeming BA points for awards on AA:
https://www.britishairways.com/execclub/na/earning/docs/american.shtml
Three times I've redeemed 35K BA miles for R/T tickets on AA for travel between Hawaii and the continental US, with the double miles promo I view this as being like getting a round trip for only 17,500 miles.

Thanks to all for the replys and information. I will be depositing my D.C. points to my British Air though even after looking at the website given for exchanging I am still not sure how to exchange Brit.Air for depositing to my American Air account.

You can't deposit the BA miles into your AA account. You CAN get AA seats using the BA miles to purchase the award tickets.

yep, use your BA miles to ticket on AA award inventory. Or make BA happy and fly to a BA city! Someone (BA or AA or Diners?) says there is a 50K cap per year on transfers though, I and others have found this to be very lax as a way to transfer miles from AA to BA yearly, or from Diners to BA.

The only question now is will BA be around in a year? that's another subject all together!

Hi,

This is a very interesting topic.

I am just wondering what I should do with my DC points.

I am AC Aeroplan Elite and have some miles with Air France and British airways, very few with LH.

I mostly fly with Star Alliance.

Should I transfer DC points to AC or BA, AF??

Thank,

aad665

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by aad665:
Hi,

This is a very interesting topic.

I am just wondering what I should do with my DC points.

I am AC Aeroplan Elite and have some miles with Air France and British airways, very few with LH.

I mostly fly with Star Alliance.

Should I transfer DC points to AC or BA, AF??

Thank,

aad665</font>

The best conversion is transferring to BA. However, is your Diners Club card registered in the U.S.? I see from your profile that you are in Germany. I am not sure if they have that promotion with BA or not.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">The BA transfer is the best thing to do with DC Club Rewards points and the only thing I've ever done with mine.</font>I prefer to "top off" accounts to get awards, or to keep family members' accounts from expiring. This is allowed on most (but not all) DC partner airlines. A few allow only transfers only to the card holder's account.

I believe one that restricts DC transfers to the card holder's account only is UA.

I rarely fly BA. In fact, I believe I've never flown BA. However, I did set up an account, just so I can transfer my DC points. Anybody know if there's a time limit on using miles in an otherwise stagnant account? I'd hate to transfer miles this summer only to find out they all expired a couple years from now.

cnk

It won't be "stagnant," under the terms and conditions of most frequent flyer plans (read yours to ensure that a parter activity so qualifies), if you deposit 1000 miles as often as required since the last activity -- usually 36 months, 18 months for CO.

Should anyone else desire a Diners Club referral, the "Member Get A Member" online sign-up address (new cardholders can earn up to 12K bonus miles in the first year if they use their card every month) and my Sponsor Code are in my FlyerTalk profile. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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

I believe one that restricts DC transfers to the card holder's account only is UA.

</font>

Not that I'm aware of. However I have not recently tried to transfer milles to my UA account. The one that definitely restricts one to the DC account holder is AA.

Two months ago, I transferred a few points to my wife's UA account to bring her up to 25K. So that one works...at least for same last name. I know AA definitely does not because I tried it as well.

I frequently use DC points for top-off purposes. To me, this beats even the BA deal because I can top-off right when I want an award. Helps me get value out of the 3 or 4 accounts I have with airlines I fly only a couple times a year. I also funnel iDine miles to those more-dormant accounts for the same purpose.

Although I haven't done it: if you want to get cash for your DC points, you can swap 25K for 1 Southwest ticket. Once you have a Southwest ticket, you can freely sell it on the open market (unlike other FF tickets) - I think they fetch around $300 these days.

Other than that, you can't beat the BA promo...

We're new to DC, am I reading this correctly? I went to the DC site & it looks like you can transfer AA miles to points & then you can transfer those points to double miles on BA? We'll already have 12,000 DC miles...

Where is the documentation for double miles on BA?

Thanks!

If you want airmiles, then all the stuff mentioned above is good. I use my Diner's points quite often to transfer into hotel points since I'm miles heavy & hotel points short. Also, one year I redeemed points for 8 Waterford red wine balloon glasses, which was great. If you're ever miles & hotel points heavy, then merchandise can be a good use of points too.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pinniped:
Although I haven't done it: if you want to get cash for your DC points, you can swap 25K for 1 Southwest ticket. Once you have a Southwest ticket, you can freely sell it on the open market (unlike other FF tickets) - I think they fetch around $300 these days.</font>

Although WN might be a generous airline, they're not this generous--in the very first rule in the Notice of Incorporated Terms on the back of the Rapid Rewards ticket it states that the "Award Ticket flight coupon is transferable (but is void if sold)." So, although there may very well be a practice of selling WN RR tickets, Southwest does officially prohibit this.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by chris1gill:
We're new to DC, am I reading this correctly? I went to the DC site & it looks like you can transfer AA miles to points & then you can transfer those points to double miles on BA?</font>

That's correct, but you lose half the AA miles' value in the process. 10,000 AA miles convert to 10,000 DC points, but a DC point is essentially half an airline mile. So, with the double BA promo (assuming they run it this summer; precedent says they will, but lots of things in the travel biz aren't quite the same now as they were) you end up where you started. It's a good loss-free way to get miles from AA (or UA) to BA, if you want to do that, but you don't come out ahead.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Efrem:
It's a good loss-free way to get miles from AA (or UA) to BA, if you want to do that, but you don't come out ahead.</font>

You definitely don't come out ahead. If Diners Club does the BA promotion again this summer, you will get the same number of BA miles as you had AA or UA miles. However, with BA's new program dilution, premium awards on BA cost much more in terms of miles than before. See the BA board for details.