iheartwiki

Hello,

I am new here, and I have to say that I very much love this site.

I would like to cash in my 100K points, and was wondering what the best way to do so would be. I do not travel at all, but I am a med student who will need to travel by plane to at least 10-15 interviews in exactly 2 years from now.

Should I just go ahead and get 10 of the $100 amazon gift certificates, or do you know of a way I can get miles for the points, and not have those miles expire within the next 2 years? It might be worth mentioning that the only mileage program I am a member of is United Airlines, which happens to not participate in Diners Club awards (atleast from what I could tell from their website). It really sucks because I have their credit card too, so the miles wouldn't expire if there was a way for me to transfer them to United. Or do you think it's just not worth it and that I should just get the Amazon gift certificates?

Thank you for your time in advance

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Why redeem the points now? Better to leave them in Club Rewards until you need them.

sdsearch

Well then may ask I why (and when!) you got the Diners Club card? AFAIK it has not been available for new (individual) accounts for several years now, so presumably you've had it for several years. And I thought it was (back then) only typically promoted to travelers?

But that's just curiosity. On the practical side:

Where are you (or where will you be) based (when you get to the point where you'll have to do these travels)? And how far away do you expect those interviews to be?

Btw, to expand on what mia asked about why transfer now: A lot could change in the industry in the next two years. What might be the best place to transfer now might not seem to have been the best place when you get to two years from now.

If you haven't faced an annual fee with Diners Club since the November switch to BMO/Harris ownership, you should hopefully be able to get at least a one-time credit offsetting your annual fee as a retention bonus to compensate for the trouble you presumably had accessing your account info back then. That would allow you to put off this decision for at least a year (on the assumption that you were planning to cancel the card and that's why transfer out now?).

And welcome to FlyerTalk, iheartwiki!

iheartwiki

Thank you both for your replies!

With school being such a nightmare, I never have time to do anything anymore. I don't want something to happen to this card next month or next year when I'm in the middle of a rotation, and then have to deal with it. I have a very laid back 3 weeks ahead of me, and I thought to myself that if I need to change my credit card, I need to do it now, or it will need to hold its peace for at least another year when I have some time again.

I had to make a phone call to customer service last month. I had to wait almost 45 minutes to speak with someone. With my life being in "survival mode" right now, 45 minutes was a very long time for me. While I was on hold, I had to hang up and call them back again 12 times (yes, 12!!) over a period of 5 days, because I had to get back into the clinic or my break was over. I was very unhappy with that situation. I had called them because my credit card was denied, and after finally reaching someone, I was told that it was an error on their part due to the merging, and that it wouldn't happen again.

On top of that, there is a lot of gloom and doom when it comes to this credit card on this website. So that was another factor that made me think that maybe I should change the card.

With that being said, I called them earlier today (after spending approximately 25 minutes on hold) and asked them politely to waive my annual fee (which was charged to my account last week), and they immediately waived it and told me I'll be seeing a refund on my account soon. I guess I'm sort of starting to realize that maybe keeping this card as my primary card wouldn't be such a bad idea? I can't help but feel that waiting so long to talk to someone is completely unacceptable. Again, my situation is very atypical - for example, if I wasn't on break, I would not have called them just for the annual fee waiver today - 25 minutes is a lot of time when you have to be at 3 different places at once 18 hours a day.

SDsearch, I had no idea it wasn't available for new individual accounts. You are right, I've had it for about 7 years I think. I was an accountant in the corporate world for a few years before deciding to go back to school and apply to medical school. I used to travel quite a bit, so back then, it was a perfect choice. I decided to keep the card after leaving there because I'm just so used to it. Plus, their customer service was amazing, and with the lack of time, I am more than willing to pay an annual fee just to be able to talk to a human being whenever I decide to talk to one. Am I being unrealistic perhaps?

My apologies for the lengthy post. Thank you for taking the time to read it!

SDsearch - sorry, I forgot to answer some of your questions. I am and will be based in Columbus, OH. My interviews will be primarily on the west coast. Do you really think that things will change that much in two years?

Waiting for two years (as Mia also suggested) frankly seems like the most logical option.

sdsearch

Columbus to West Coast, the most bang for your buck might be Southwest, but it depends on how far in advance you can book those flights. Southwest 100k points could be up to about 5 maybe 6 round trips, and no blackout dates, but since their point system is proporrtional to fares, the best redemptions are when money fares are on sale, and the worst redemptions are booking close in (after discount money fares have all disapppeared).

If you won't have time to keep up with this after the current period, there's perhaps a reason to transfer to Southwest now (if you have time now to figure out that it will indeed work best for you). The reason: AMEX Membership Rewards stopped transfer to Southwest recently, and there's at least some chance that Diners Club might drop it within the next two years.

So if the only time you can check to see if Southwest is about to stop being a Diners Club tansfer choice is now or two years from now, then maybe you should consider trasnfering now. But if you can keep checking at least every month or so in this forum just for any news about new transfer opportunities or lost transfer opportunities, then you don't have to worry about making the deciision right away.

(A miles-based airline will only give you 2 to 4 free trips Columbus to west coast for 100k, because you won't always be able to find a 25k redemption for an interview trip. You'll always be able to get the 50k "anytime" rate, but that would mean only 2 trips out of 100k DC points!)

As to what else could change in the next two years: Besides lost transfer opportunities and new transfer opportunities, American Airlines' fate it not aboslutely clear (since it is not in 100% control of its itself during the bankrupcy process), and who knows what else will go topsy turvy in the next two years?

iheartwiki

SDsearch, thank you so much for taking the time to write such an informative reply. It makes perfect sense. I think I will just hold on to the points, and as you suggested, log into this site at least once or twice a month to see if there are any changes worth noting, and act from there. I'm loving the website very much and the information I've learned from here has been amazing. I've added the site to my favorites, so I will definitely be checking up on here regularly. Again, thank you for your time! I very much appreciate it. Take care.