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Transferring Diners Club [Canada] points to Aeroplan

Transferring Diners Club [Canada] points to Aeroplan

Old Mar 17, 2010, 8:30 pm
  #1  
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Question Transferring Diners Club [Canada] points to Aeroplan

Hi, can someone please tell me how do I go about transferring 20,000 Diners Club points to my Aeroplan account. I'm not sure if I contact Diners Club or Aeroplan and I can find nothing on either of their web-sites. Help!
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Old Mar 18, 2010, 7:12 am
  #2  
mia
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Welcome to Flyertalk.

You would contact Diners Club, but it may be possible to perform the transfer online depending on the nationality of your card. Where is your card issued?
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Old Mar 18, 2010, 3:44 pm
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I have a Canadian Diners Club - issued in Canada
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Old Mar 18, 2010, 5:07 pm
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Sophia1, welcome to FlyerTalk.

I don't believe that there is any way to directly transfer points from a Canadian based DC account to Aeroplan.

There are a couple of indirect ways to do it, but the conversion rate is not great.

The best indirect transfer that I am aware of is through the SPG program;

20,250 DC Points converts to 6,750 SPG points, which then become 6,750 AP miles.

Others may be aware of better options.
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Old Mar 19, 2010, 4:40 am
  #5  
mia
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You can see the complete list of Diners Club Canada airline partners here, and Air Canada is not included:

https://www.citibank.com/dinersus/js...egory=fc79feb6
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Old Mar 19, 2010, 10:41 pm
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Smile Diners club points to Aeroplan miles

Thanks everyone for your answers - looks like I can't do a direct transfer so will go about doing it the SPG way - I'm certainly never going to get enough points to travel with any of the Diners Club partners as the list is limited to the western Canadian airports that I would be using anyway. Thanks so much for all your info.
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Old Mar 20, 2010, 5:19 am
  #7  
mia
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I believe there is a restriction on transferring Starpoints earned "primarily" with a Canadian credit card to Aeroplan. I suggest you ask Starwood before making the transfer from Diners Club, otherwise you may end up with a small amount of Starpoints. You will not be able to transfer them back to Diners.

Bear in mind that you do not necessarily need to fly on the airline operating the program to make a transfer worthwhile. Most airlines belong to one of three alliances: OneWorld, SkyTeam or Star. Air Canada is a Star Alliance member. Miles held in one Star Alliance frequent flyer program cannot be combined with miles held in another program, but they can be redeemed for travel on any Star Alliance carrier. This means you might be able to transfer to SAS or Thai and redeem for travel on Air Canada, but you would need to research the terms and requirements of those programs to understand if 20,000 is sufficient for a cost-effective award.

You might also look at Alaska Airlines program. Alaska is not a member of any alliance, but instead has partnerships with a number of individual airlines described here:

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileagep...rs_Airline.asp

Last edited by mia; Mar 20, 2010 at 5:26 am
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Old Mar 20, 2010, 11:17 am
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Originally Posted by mia
I believe there is a restriction on transferring Starpoints earned "primarily" with a Canadian credit card to Aeroplan.
Mia, with respect, I don't believe that this is currently an issue with the SPG program. I have earned almost all of my SPG points with the recently deceased MBNA SPG Mastercard, have only ever had one Starwood " stay ". And never had any trouble doing an SPG to Aeroplan transfer. I believe several years ago you had to call SPG to do the Aeroplan transfer, but now that it can be done online there doesn't appear to be any attempt to verify how the SPG points were earned.

I agree completely that the DC to SPG to Aeroplan transfer is a very poor value for the DC points. I am NOT recommending this option, only pointing out that the option existed.

Sophia 1, what do you hope to achieve with your DC points ? What airports do you fly out of, and where do you want to go ? Personally I am a fan of transferring DC to either AA or BA ( depending on what transfer bonuses are available ) programs. Although my home city is not served by either airline or their partners, the flexibility of the one-way awards these programs offer gives me the best value for my DC points.

I am not familiar with the details of the AS program, but I believe they may also offer one-way awards, and I am sure this option is worth checking out.
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Old Mar 20, 2010, 12:13 pm
  #9  
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Originally Posted by thebobmc
...don't believe that this is currently an issue with the SPG program...
You are much more likely to be correct ^. I have not followed this issue because I am not affected by it. I did find a discussion from April 2008 in which Starwood Lurker II confirmed the specific restriction on points earned with the MBNA card, but much has changed since:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/9653785-post18.html
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Old Mar 21, 2010, 5:48 pm
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Cool transferring DC points to Aeroplan

Thanks Mia and thebobmc for your handy replies - I will look into both suggestions. I fly out of YYC - Calgary Alberta. Alaska Airlines does fly out of here as do BA. I'm just trying to get rid of the DC points - don't use my DC card anymore but don'twant to close it out with those miles just sitting there when I am in need of them with either the Airmiles program or with Aeroplan.
I know that I can top up to the miles needed with DC but at 20,000 I don't have the required 50% of a ticket - ticket for a flight to Europe is 65,000, and then if you have only the needed miles and top up with cash you are actually paying one heck of a lot for a ticket. I think it's a real shame that 1) you have to earn so great an amount of points to fly and 2) it takes so long to try and earn points. I think their program is well suited to business people that are flying contantly but the average old joe it takes forever to get there.
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Old Mar 27, 2010, 3:52 pm
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Originally Posted by sophia1
Thanks Mia and thebobmc for your handy replies - I will look into both suggestions. I fly out of YYC - Calgary Alberta. Alaska Airlines does fly out of here as do BA. I'm just trying to get rid of the DC points - don't use my DC card anymore but don'twant to close it out with those miles just sitting there when I am in need of them with either the Airmiles program or with Aeroplan.
I know that I can top up to the miles needed with DC but at 20,000 I don't have the required 50% of a ticket - ticket for a flight to Europe is 65,000, and then if you have only the needed miles and top up with cash you are actually paying one heck of a lot for a ticket. I think it's a real shame that 1) you have to earn so great an amount of points to fly and 2) it takes so long to try and earn points. I think their program is well suited to business people that are flying contantly but the average old joe it takes forever to get there.
If you are thinking of going to Europe with BA I would transfer your DC miles into BAEC (1.25DC->1BA miles so roughly 16000BA miles) You could then plan a bit ahead and get a cheap WT+ fare on BA and use 12,500 miles to upgrade one way to CW on BA. Best use of BA miles nevermind for some orphaned DC points.
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Old Mar 28, 2010, 4:09 pm
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This is so ironic because the DC--USA program does allow conversions to Aeroplan at the same rate as to other airlines!
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Old Apr 10, 2010, 5:47 am
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A bit of history

DC in Canada used to be the main credit card partner of Aeroplan (with CIBC). Those were the days a DC card also meant Maple Leaf Lounge Memerbship and access to the MLL. All points earned by a Canadian CC were automatically transfered into AP at 1:1 ratio. I earned hundreds of thousands of points that way in my AP account!!

About 5 years ago, AMEX signed up a deal with AP for several hundred millions dollars, and obviously, DC was dropped by AP. DC Canada had to align itself with another points scheme program and since there was already a DC points program in the US, it was basically copied by DC Canada, with local adjustments.

Amex requested from AP to cut all ties with DC, including the possibility to transfer points from DC Canada to AP. Otherwise, every cardholder just would have hold on to their DC points and transfer them into AP when needed. Nobody would have signed for the new AMEX card!

That basically explains why you can't transfer from your Canadian DC points into AP.
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Old Apr 11, 2010, 11:52 am
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Tailored Travel

Sophia1, you may already have dealt with your DC transfer dilemma, but if you still have the DC points here is something you may wish to check out. Canadian based DC account holders have access to something called " Tailored Travel ", https://www.citibank.com/dinersus/js...egory=128518e8

I have never used it, but basically it sounds like you get 1.7 cents value for each DC point that you have. It isn't great, but I would say it is a lot better than the value you would get through an indirect DC to Aeroplan transfer.
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Old Jun 22, 2010, 9:55 am
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Originally Posted by thebobmc
Canadian based DC account holders have access to something called " Tailored Travel ", https://www.citibank.com/dinersus/js...egory=128518e8

I have never used it, but basically it sounds like you get 1.7 cents value for each DC point that you have. It isn't great, but I would say it is a lot better than the value you would get through an indirect DC to Aeroplan transfer.
This seems like a great option for folks in certain circumstances - is there not anything at all like this available for US based card holders?
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