Diners Club Card Premier and Diners Club Card Elite (discontinued for new applications)
Updated January 27, 2018.
Facts
In this review, we will cover two versions of the new Diners Club Cards - Diners Club Card Premier (World MasterCard) and Diners Club Card Elite (World Elite MasterCard). For the old Diners Club Card please see our review here.
The Math
Diners Club Premier: For $95 a year, you will enjoy worldwide lounge access and primary rental car coverage. In addition, even without any category bonus, many card members will find the card to be an excellent alternative to some of our favorite miles/points cards for general spending, such as Amex SPG, Amex EveryDay Preferred (EDP), Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Citi Prestige.
Diners Club Elite is $205 more expensive than Diners Club Premier and an additional card costs $115 extra than the Diners Club Premier's. The only major enhancement over the cheaper version is the 3x category. It depends on how you value Club Rewards points and your annual spending in this category. If you value Club Rewards points at 1.6 cents a piece, then you will have to spend at least $6,400 a year (~$530 a month) to break even. Note that even though Diners Club Elite's 3x return on grocery stores is not as high as Amex EDP's 4.5x (assuming you complete 30 transactions per month), it does not have any annual cap as Amex EDP does ($6,000). To see how Diners Club Elite competes with other cards with similar annual fees, please check out our featured review Comparing High-end Cards covering Amex Platinum Card, Amex Delta Reserve, Amex Hilton Aspire, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase United MP Club, JPM Ritz-Carlton, Citi Prestige, Citi AA Executive, U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, Diners Club Elite, CNB Crystal, and MasterCard Black Card.
The Conclusion
The new Diners Club Cards issued in the U.S. is a good alternative to some of our favorite miles/points cards. If you would like to spend a lot in the 3x category, you may want to consider upgrading to the Elite version.
Facts
In this review, we will cover two versions of the new Diners Club Cards - Diners Club Card Premier (World MasterCard) and Diners Club Card Elite (World Elite MasterCard). For the old Diners Club Card please see our review here.
- Annual Fee: Diners Club Premier $95 for primary card member and $35 for an additional card member. Diners Club Elite $300 for primary card member and $150 for an additional card member.
- Signup Bonus: none.
- Rewards: Diners Club Premier 1x everywhere. Diners Club Elite 3x gas, groceries, and drugstores, and 1x everywhere else.
- Best Use of Club Rewards (CR) Points: Club Rewards points are earned through spending with Diners Club cards. CR points can be redeemed for merchandise, gift cards, cash, travel, etc., at up to 1 cent per point. However, the best redemption option is to transfer CR points to frequent traveler miles/points, mostly at 1:1. Please see our featured review SPG vs. MR vs. UR vs. TY vs. CR about the five popular programs that allow miles/points transfer.
- Other Benefits: (1) Complimentary access for primary or additional card members to over 500 airport lounges worldwide, though with limited presence (currently 18 lounges) in the U.S. (2) Primary rental car collision coverage - note while most credit cards provide rental car insurance, they are secondary, meaning your personal insurance's collision damage coverage kicks in before the credit card's. Please see our featured review on credit cards that come with primary rental car insurance for details. (3) Car rental discount for Avis and Budget. (4) Waived foreign transaction fees with an embedded EMV chip. Note that Diners Club cards are among the very first few cards in the U.S. that employed "Chip & PIN" technology as the first preference, which makes the chip much more useful than the majority of the cards that have EMV chips. (5) All these benefits are available to additional card members.
- Diners Club Elite also enjoys the standard World Elite MasterCard benefits such as World Elite Luxury Hotels & Resorts (free breakfasts, upgrades, early check-in, late check-out, and hotel specific amenities), World Elite Air Program (upgrades, savings, or companion tickets, mostly on full fare tickets), World Elite Cruise Program (up to $500 savings), World Elite Tours and Vacations (up to $250 or 5% savings), World Elite Car Rental (savings and elite status with Avis, National, and Sixt), World Elite Chauffeured Car Service (savings and benefits), World Elite Private Jet Program (savings and benefits), MasterCard Airport Concierge (15% savings), and so on.
- History: Diners Club International used to be a major credit card company with its own payment network, just like American Express. In 1981, Diners Club International was purchased by Citi, who eliminated Diners Club network's presence in North America while keeping it for the rest of the world. In 2004, Citi made a deal with MasterCard so that Diners Club cards could be accepted not only in its own network but also in MasterCard network. In 2008, Citi sold Diners Club International (the payment network) to Discover who later combined its own network (mostly in North America) with the Diners Club network (outside North America), so that Diners Club cards issued outside North America would be accepted in both Discover and Diners Club networks. In 2009, Citi sold Diners Club's North American portion to Bank of Montreal (aka BMO Financial Group), and Diners Club cards issued in this region would use MasterCard network but not Diners Club network anymore. From early 2000s until 2014, Diners Club did not accept new personal applications in North America. In September 2014, BMO finally started accepting new personal Diners Club applications in the U.S. and rebranded "Diners Club Card" as "Diners Club Card Premier" and "Carte Blanche Card" as "Diners Club Card Elite". At the same time, BMO added the zero foreign transaction fee and EMV chip features to keep up with the competition. However, BMO has "temporarily" suspended new applications since November 2014, and we don't know whether it will reopen.
The Math
Diners Club Premier: For $95 a year, you will enjoy worldwide lounge access and primary rental car coverage. In addition, even without any category bonus, many card members will find the card to be an excellent alternative to some of our favorite miles/points cards for general spending, such as Amex SPG, Amex EveryDay Preferred (EDP), Chase Sapphire Preferred, and Citi Prestige.
Diners Club Elite is $205 more expensive than Diners Club Premier and an additional card costs $115 extra than the Diners Club Premier's. The only major enhancement over the cheaper version is the 3x category. It depends on how you value Club Rewards points and your annual spending in this category. If you value Club Rewards points at 1.6 cents a piece, then you will have to spend at least $6,400 a year (~$530 a month) to break even. Note that even though Diners Club Elite's 3x return on grocery stores is not as high as Amex EDP's 4.5x (assuming you complete 30 transactions per month), it does not have any annual cap as Amex EDP does ($6,000). To see how Diners Club Elite competes with other cards with similar annual fees, please check out our featured review Comparing High-end Cards covering Amex Platinum Card, Amex Delta Reserve, Amex Hilton Aspire, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase United MP Club, JPM Ritz-Carlton, Citi Prestige, Citi AA Executive, U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, Diners Club Elite, CNB Crystal, and MasterCard Black Card.
The Conclusion
The new Diners Club Cards issued in the U.S. is a good alternative to some of our favorite miles/points cards. If you would like to spend a lot in the 3x category, you may want to consider upgrading to the Elite version.