RichG

I noticed that, beginning with the January, 2011 statement, there was no coupon for using the Club Plus credit line to pay part of the bill (I don't think this feature necessarily applied to each and every account).

I just called DC-CS and was told the Club Plus feature has been discontinued, in general, and minimum payments toward outstanding balances would still be calculated as before, as part of the Payment Due on each bill. The rep. didn't think there was any change pending to the Club Cash feature.

This is not a big deal, IMHO, but it's yet another chip away at the uniqueness of DC. Even though the APR charged for Club Plus was relatively low, I find it difficult to believe that this feature wasn't profitable.

notanumber

Yes, I noticed this too. Kind of surprised we didn't receive any advance notification.

sdsearch

Unfortunately, this seems to be the pattern. We also didn't receive any advance notification that Due Date would change from date of next statement to 4 days earlier, did we?

Btw, welcome to FlyerTalk, notanumber! With that handle, I presume you're a Prisoner fan?

donengcsp

I've been a member of DC since 1977 and thus I have been waiting for 34-years for something positive to happen with that card. Nothing happened under Citi and now it's been a year with BMO and still nothing. I'll be gray and old before anything happens with that card!

ORDDoug

I have taken great advantage of the Club Plus feature and having it ripped away with no notice not only angered me, but inconvenienced me by greatly inflating my minimum payment due for 2 months. I spoke to a rep and they said that "they looked at the contracts and determined that legally, they didd not need to provide advance notice of this particular change." This will be my last year of paying their ridiculous fee, now that they have taken away the last positive aspect of the card for me.

sdsearch

Well, I don't understand what it is specfically that you're waiting for.

Certainly some things have happened with the card. For starters, what in the world were you able to redeem Club Rewards points (if they existed at all) for back in 1977, which was 4 years before the start of the first FFP? So obviously, one thing that happened since 1977 was the ability to transfer into a variety of frequent flyer programs and frequent guest points!

Then the original Diners Club network didn't work everywhere, so one there were Club Rewards points to use, you couldn't earn them at "ordinary" places where Diners Club wasn't accepted. So to many of us who view Club Rewards as a major (if not the major) draw of Diners Club, the transition to MasterCard was something positive, because it meant I could use the card everywhere (not endlessly researching which merchants accepted it and which didn't!). No more having to shop at Montgomery Ward because Sears didn't take it. (And good thing, since Montgomery Ward is no more!)

Since you apparently didn't view the ability to transfer into a variety of airline and hotel programs nor the abliity to use the card anywhere that MasterCard is accepted as positives, I'm curious as to what specific positive things you've been waiting 34+ years for?

(Keep in mind, you're mentioning this on FlyerTalk, which is primarily a board for fans of miles/points programs. It's because of the points program that Diners Club has a seciton here. And I'm confused as to how that points program worked so well before FFPs came on the scene in 1981.)

mia

Club Rewards was introduced in 1984.

notanumber

I've been a member since 1980 and from what I can remember, back then points could only be used for iems in a catalog.
As for Club Plus, it wasn't introduced until sometime after Citi took over the franchise around 1981/82. So maybe it's elimination has to due with the transition to BMO.

MichaelJFK

Wish I had seen this post earlier...it would have saved some frustration in having to talk to the call center -- wherever that may now be (though I could have sworn the rep said her name and the Nevada -- perhaps some call sare still routed to The Lakes location even though billing has shifted?). I actually remember when it was a pleasure to call Diners and instantly get a helpful agent.

Didn't notice the coupon missing from the statement but when I called to ask a question, the account rep stated is was discontinued and that they would not be telling anyone. Thinking this was suspect, I spoke to a supervisor who did say that they are notifying cardholders in February. Would have been nice to have some notice. Not a big deal but I did use the facility from time to time and feel like this is just the beginning of a dilution in benefits (and let's face it, Citi was no rockstar after they got their hands on it). Oh, and the supervisor said they were told a new Web site would not be launched until Fall 2011. Both the rep and supervisor seemed completely clueless.

I too have been a cardholder for a long time and it was always my preferred card. Alas, now there is really nothing stopping me from pulling out my AMEX instead. Maybe time to move the Club Rewards points before another "surprise"?

Beckles

I fail to see anything unique about the ability to revolve a balance.

starflyer

Revolving a balance is not unique, but I think the OP was commenting that the combination of DC benefits is/was unique, not that the revolving balance feature is unique.

mia

Diner's implementation was attractive. The Club Plus (revolving) balance didn't subject new transactions to a finance charge. This isn't unique, a similar option is available from American Express, but it was far better than a typical credit card.

RichG

I think mia expressed best what I meant. In effect you had separate cash and revolving accounts, and you had control over how you handled them. That's something you can't do with a conventional all-revolving cc account.

clarence5ybr

Yes, too bad Club Plus is gone, and no thanks to Diners for giving no notice--even with no advance notice, they could have printed something in the statement to the effect of 'you may notice there is no longer a Club Plus activator form included in your statement...'.

On a slightly funny note, even though they yanked Club Plus, they forgot to eliminate the the line on the statement that shows 'available balance'--the fact that they list an available balance makes it look like I could still charge multiple thousands of $$$ to Club Plus!

mia

This may not be an oversight. See this thread for discussion of the inconsistency in displaying the Club Plus credit line on the statements:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/diner...dit-limit.html

While Citi and BMO still call this a Charge Card, I think that at the system implementation level it is almost indistinguishable from a MasterCard World card with a specified revolving credit limit plus a no preset spending limit feature.