Diners Club US: Is there any reason to stay?
 

I have been a card member since 2007 and primarily signed up because of the rental car primary benefit. I also enjoyed the fact that I had the ability to transfer and top off AA accounts as well as the other transfers.

Being a Citigold member and having my annual fees waived made yearly renewal a no brainer.

However, now that so many other cards offer primary car insurance including the Chase Presidential Plus card and that AA is no longer a transfer partner. I am beginning to question whether it is worth $95 for the lounge benefit (which I also get with Amex Platinum Priority Pass as well as United Club)


Right now the fact that no one else can sign up for the card seems like the only reason I am not giving it up. I certainly don't mind shelling out $95 if there are any benefits.

What do you guys think?

The cards that work primary everywhere for insurance seem to keep changing, though. There was Citi AA card that had that, and then they dropped it. I need to keep my credit card on file with Avis, and it'd be a pain to constantly change it, so a card that works as primary for insurance decade in decade out is a plus for me.

It's also the only card that earns (something that can be turned into) airline miles or hotel points of any kind that is "true" chip and PIN card. Although only one place on each trip, there was one place on each of my last two European trips where it was the only card that worked. (Though I didn't have any chip & signature cards yet at those times, so I was comparing to swipe cards. But in both cases it did ask for my PIN, and both cases were automated, so I'm not positive that chip & signature would have worked there.)

(The only other "true" chip and PIN cards in the USA so far are from random credit unions, and such naturally aren't linked to any hotel or airline programs.)

Also, it offers the best value in flexible transfer to several hotel programs (better than Amex, and including hotel programs that aren't available through Ultimate Rewards). These days I find more value in transferring DC points to hotel programs than to airline programs.

I keep waiting for something to happen to revive this card. Not much has happened recently, but I have been successful getting the annual fee waived just by asking.

I will try that

I just gave up last week and cancelled my card. When I called, there was no real attempt at retention, although the agent was nice. I had the card for nearly 15 years (mainly for the auto rental insurane). However, I haven't rented a car for nearly 4 years and no longer need the insurance.

I will be much better off, just taking the AMEX optional rental car insurance at $24 per rental.

How come no one mentioned the airport lounge access perk as a reason to stay? I have to say, I have not tried the Diners lounge access. But it seems to me, just based on the huge difference in annual fee, this perk should compare well with Amex. No?

DC charges a forex fee on top of the annual fee. There are other cards out there that have lower (or no) annual fee and has no FTFs.

IMO, there's not many reasons to stick with DC other than the wow-you-must-be-super-elite-because-you-have-a-Diners-Club factor. And even that is becoming lame thanks to the Mastercard logo on the front. :D

In recent years, access to lounges using a North American DC card is iffy. Card is rejected when attendant put it through the machine.

The Diners Club lounge network is much smaller than Priority Pass. In particular, there only about a dozen locations in the USA.

I don't recall any reports of this happening since Discover took control of Diners Club International. I think that some lounges had terminal which were hardcoded to recognize only 3X acount numbers and rejected the MasterCard versions which begin with 5X, but Discover's integration of DCI into their network would have required broad re-programming.

MasterCard acceptance is actually one of the best features of the card. Overall, I find the rewards program better than Chase Ultimate Rewards. Diners transfers to every partner that Chase offers except United Airlines, some at the same 1:1 rate, some at an inferior rate, and some at a superior rate, plus they have many additional partners and they offer regular transfer bonuses, which Chase has never done. If I lived in a UA hub I expect I would have a different opinion, but in Miami UA is a trivial factor.

My Canadian DC card was consistently turned down by SATS at SIN. Green Market was OK.
Latest turn down was at KIX , Lounge Rokko

I loved the card when I was in Dubai. Even got my wife a companion card. The lounge access at DXB was fantastic, esp since most lounges wanted a Middle East issued Amex if one were to try and enter with Amex.

Since moving back to North America DC has become my spare card. Really only keeping it around b/c I haven't found great uses for my points. Need to figure that out (may just take the 1% return on travel) and then cancel...