Steve M

I wonder what affect this will have on the Citibank AAdvantage MasterCard. I can't be the only one with both an AAdvantage MasterCard and a Diners Club. If Diners Club were to become accepted worldwide the same as MasterCard, there'd be very little reason to keep the AAdvantage card. Even with the small charge to redeem miles, you'd have to redeem DC points into around 50,000 miles before equaling the $50 annual fee savings. Even if you charge more than that, I think the added benefit of keeping miles in the flexible bank that DC provides would more than offset any deficit through the transfer fees, and that's assuming that you never take advantage of a transfer bonus.

For me personally, the only thing that would possibly keep me with the AAdvantage card is the Virtual Account Numbers feature that Citibank provides (assuming that this didn't automatically become available to the DC product once it has a MasterCard account number).

But, I suppose that the number of people with both cards is small in the larger scheme of Diners Club cardholders.

CountinPlaces

I will drop my corp Amex and the $75 membership rewards IMMEDIATELY if this turns out to be as good as it seems.

However, if DC dilutes the benefits, then I will drop them with little hesitation.

dougef

I bet the numbers are way bigger than you might think. I also have both. Use DC wherever it is accepted and use my Aadvantage MC almost everywhere else. My plan is if they dilute the DC benefits I'll drop DC and swith to an Amex with rewards. I need some kind of Amex for use at Costco - right now use the free Hilton Amex and ONLY use it at Costco.

fuzz

I have spoken with the people at DIners CLub and asked about the time frame, myself. I currently use AMEX Blue (my charges are not that high, yet) but was thinking of going over the Starwood. THe problem I have is with acceptance. I was talking my parents into dropping their USAirways Visa in favor of Diners if this deal goes through and is as good as it sounds.

The people at Diners told me that it will take a while, but that the date they hope for is January 1, 2005. They have no information about whether the card will become a MasterCard or not. As for now, they expect benefits to continue. They admit that they do not know many details at this time. I actually called a couple of times to see if maybe it was just the person who answered, but I think the people on the phone genuinely do not know.

Nevsky

They should do both.

Stefan Daystrom

I have both too. A few points:

1. Per the announcement , Diners Club WON'T become accepted WORLDWIDE the same as Mastercard, only in the US and Canada. So it might depend on how much you need to use an MC in other countries.

2. AA occasionally (but how often over the long term) runs promos that only work if you have an AAdvantage MC. The last one I recall (that I was able to use, anyway) was the 5000 miles for one Starwood stay at the beginning of this year. If they did enough of these promos that I could make use of, then, the bonus miles from these promos would be way more signficant to me that the "leftover" spending I might make outside the US/Canada using an MC.

3. AAdvantatge MC currently only has Gold and Platinum levels, both of which have an annual fee. In the past, they "tested" a Bronze level which had no annual fee (but half the earning rate). If they brought back Bronze, next year (I did my signup this year) would downgrade ANYWAY, keeping it mostly just to participate in promos like mentioned above. If they don't bring back Bronze, it REALLY depends a lot on if there's enough AA-MC-only promos...

Also, one other thing to keep in mind regarding a Diners that works like MC: You won't be able to register it for any airline mile iDine (Rewards Network), because it'll automatically be registered in Restaruant Savings Program (cashback). Thus if you're currently using AA MC for AA iDine, and you dump your AA MC, you'll have to get ANOTHER Visa/MC if you want to keep doing AA iDines.

ajnaro

It seems to me that if it has an MC logo on it, it has to be accepted worldwide as an MC. In many countries MC and DC are already the same anyway (in the sense that they are accepted at exactly the same merchants, although neither has the other's logo).

Steve M

You need to re-read the announcement. It says that North American issued DC cards will be accepted at MasterCard merchants worldwide. And as a separate matter, Diners Club cards issued in other countries will be accepted at MasterCard merchants in North America.

pointsaddict

[QUOTE=Stefan Daystrom]I have both too. A few points:

1. Per the announcement , Diners Club WON'T become accepted WORLDWIDE the same as Mastercard, only in the US and Canada. So it might depend on how much you need to use an MC in other countries.

DC will be accepted EVERYWHERE MC is accepted...and yes..that means world wide.

LIH Prem

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from. No CC charges 3% accross the board, though I'm sure some merchants pay that much. When you have a merchant account, you are generally charged a per-transaction fee and then a percentage of each transaction. The fee that you are charged depends on the type of business you are in, how many chargebacks you've had, wether you take phone/mail orders, if you have a brick and mortar presence or not, your credit rating and the fee schedule of your merchant account. The fee was higher if you manually entered the numbers rather than physically swiped the card. Yes, you have to pay a higher percentage fee to accept cards like Amex and DC because they charge more, but it isn't that much higher, depending on all of the above.

-David

pitsheel

I get the information as being a retail owner... yeah, we get charged 23 cents per transaction plus 1.57% for mc or visa, 3 for DC, 3.25 for amex.

We shopped around quite a bit and this is pretty much standard. I'm sure you could google it and find similar numbers.

Redhead

Speaking to a contact of mine within Diner's and another within MC, the initial agreement is limited to North American (US & Canada) acceptance. This means that all NA issued Diner's cards will have the MC logo (probably on the front) and will be accepted within NA wherever MC is. DC cards from other countries will most likely have the MC logo on the back and will only be accepted as MC's in NA. Diner's, not matter where issued, will continue to be accepted as DC only outside of the US and Canada.

Both companies hope that if this deal is successful that it will be replicated worldwide.

bp888

Er, when is this supposed to take effect? The press release did not mention a date of effectvity.

GeorgeF

Well, they will need to have a new account number. All merchant processing software requires an MC card number to be 16 digits plus there is an algorithm to verify the number makes sense and is in fact an MC number. Re-programming all software and processing units is out of the question.
Well, how then will be the new DC with 16 digit MC number.. how will it be accepted worldwide as DC?
Maybe the new card will have 2 account numbers? Or it will be MC Electronic (equivalent of Visa Electron?) AND embossed Diners? It is either going to be something as simple as this or DC and MC are about to intrdoduce something new and revolutionary in the CC processing arena.

ahrz

The first 6 digits (Issuer Identifier) of a card determines the card type (the leftmost digit is the MMI, Major Industry Identifier), not the length of the number.

VISA cards used to have 16 digits almost everywhere, but only 13 digits in Canada some years ago, for instance.



Sorry, not correct : the formal correctness of credit card numbers is checked using the LUHN10 algorithm, which is used by all issuers (Amex, Visa, MC, DC, Discover, etc.). The algorithm works for all lengths, the check digit is always the rightmost digit .
.
.

Sorry again, there is no technical reason to change the DC card number.
You think very complicated here, it's simply a processing change how the terminal and/or the authorisation center process the card number and the transaction.