Diners Club Club Rewards - Just got a Diners Card...do I have a credit line?

I just got my Diners Club Card in the mail and I was told by a customer service rep that I would have a $1500 credit line that would be provided on the documents accompanying the card...but then I got the card in the mail and it did not say anything about a credit limit...then I called customer service and they said that there was no line of credit...

Anyway I am somewhat confused about this...I know it is a charge card so I pay it off in full every month but am I going to damage my credit score if I spend $15k in the first month of holding the card? I know with a new credit card I usually get a credit line of somewhere between $5000-$10000 and that it is bad to spend more than half of the line of credit in a given month.

Thanks for any responses.

There is an internal limit that can be exceeded if you call Diners Club ahead of time at let them know about an impending major purchase or high spending pattern.

My advice is to spend a few thousand a month, pay it off in full and then increase your spend. I have never had a problem and my monthly spend varies between $0 and $20,000.

I no longer use my Diners Club card for international travel because they do not disclose the conversion rate on the statement (they insist you can look it up in The Wall Street Journal!) Also they lump the 3% transaction charge in one foreign transaction fee charge, and not in the purchase itself, so it makes it very difficult to reconcile a charge for business purposes.

Finally, I wouldn't worry too much about the spend pattern affecting your credit report. Diners Club still hasn't figured out a way to report credit utilization activity in an accurate way, so it doesn't report to the major bureaus.

Kixo,

To clarify, do you mean that Diners Club isn't reported on a person's credit report?

Thanks in advance for your response!

So will I not build credit by using this card?

From what I understand, when Diners Club converted into the MasterCard network, it stopped reporting cardmember activity to the major credit reporting bureaus.

It seems that there is conflict as MasterCard is a revolving credit product, but Diners Club is a charge product. So when it reports to the credit bureaus as a MasterCard, it could potentially report an inaccurate credit utilization score.

About 30% of your FICO score is based on credit utilization. As an example, if your regular credit card has a $15,000 limit, and you spend $3000 on the card, your utilization is 20%. The lower the percentage of spend to your available credit, the better ostensibly is your credit utilization score.

However, since Diners Club technically doesn't have a revolving credit limit, it would report your monthly spend as your credit limit. So it would appear to the credit reporting agencies that you are spending up to 100% of your credit limit.

This would detrimentally affect your credit score. Thus it stopped reporting to the agencies. More info at: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20060331a1.asp

The downside is that you aren't building a credit history by using Diners Club. The upside is that if you are late on a payment, your credit score won't be dinged.

As info, here some questions I asked Diners Club, which interestingly could not be answered by Diners Club itself, and had to be answered by its PR agency. Q2 is relevant to this discussion:

1. What is the status of the Diners Club Credit Card? It has been announced as coming soon for over a year on the Diners Club web site.
We are focusing on our customers and their current needs, which has directed us in other areas.

2. Why has Diners Club stopped reporting account histories to the major credit bureaus?
Credit bureau reporting is not required by law and at this time we have chosen not to report.


3. Why doesn't Diners Club post its Foreign Currency Conversion rate on its monthly billing statement to customers?
Diners Club posts the foreign currency conversion rate for personal cards in the disclosure accompanying the application and in the cardmember agreement. The dollar amount charged is shown on the statement.


4. Why did Diners Club end the 60 days to pay billing cycle for consumer accounts, but retained it for corporate accounts?
We looked at the needs and usage of our customers. We give our Personal cardmembers a full billing cycle (most competitors give only 20 to 25 days) to pay without incurring a late charge. Our Corporate Card products allow up to two billing cycles since corporate employees often need extra time to get expenses reimbursed.

Well I called them again... to try to figure it out...I talked to two guys...one said my internal limit was $1500...but that I could go over that amount...I asked him how the internal limit on the card works and he said it is hard to explain...I then talked to some other guy and he said that I could spend upto $25,000 without having to call for authorization...so I am going to just assume that the limit is $25k and be done with it...

...this card kind of sucks...I cannot cancel paper statments, and there is no recent transaction page on their website...which when I signed up I was told that there was a recent transations page and that I could cancel paper statements...sigh

I cannot cancel paper statments, and there is no recent transaction page on their website...which when I signed up I was told that there was a recent transations page and that I could cancel paper statements...sigh

I don't know about cancelling paper statements, but I can see what my recent transactions are at the Diners Club website. I log in at www.dinersclubus.com, click on "Account Management", click on "Statements", and the first thing I see on the drop-down menu is "New Transactions Since Last Statement". I think this is what you want, but I could be misinterpreting what you wrote.

thanks for the post