Citibank has started offering Diners Club companion cards for free with selected Citibank credit cards. The companion cards do not cost any extra and come with some unique benefits. These include a higher earn rate of frequent flyer points and no foreign transaction fees.
The Diners Club companion card is available in conjunction with any Citi Prestige, Signature or Platinum credit card. Customers that have opted-in to earning Qantas points with their Citi credit card will also earn Qantas points on their Diners Club companion card. Likewise, customers earning Citi Rewards points already will continue to earn Citi points – which are transferrable to multiple different airlines – when spending on the Diners Club card.
Customers with both a regular Citibank Visa credit card and a Diners Club card will retain their current credit limit, which is shared across both cards. Customers will also pay just a single monthly bill. This is also how it works with the ever-decreasing range of bank-issued Amex companion cards.
Existing Citibank cardholders can apply for a Diners Club companion card for free. New customers will be offered the option of applying for the Diners Club card when applying for an eligible Citibank credit card.
If you’re eligible for a Diners Club companion card from Citibank, there are very few reasons not to apply. There is no additional annual fee payable, and the Diners Club card earns points at a higher rate without any capping. The Diners card also has no international transaction fees, making it a much better option for overseas travel and online shopping than Citibank’s regular cards.
It’s free, so why not. I already have the Prestige, requested a diners companion through online banking tonight. Just in time for my holiday to the U.S. in early Sept. the normal foreign fee of 3.4% on the Prestige is hard to stomach. Will be nice to get some sort of points and not pay a foreign transaction fee.
I requested one yesterday as a free addition to my Signature card. It will make a handy replacement for the Commonwealth Bank plat Amex, which I used largely for non-AUD transactions to earn points.
Diners Club cards normally come with unlimited access to over 700 airport lounges in the Diners Club lounge network. But Citibank’s Diners Club companion cards won’t offer the same lounge access benefits that come with cards issued directly by Diners Club.
Anyone that already uses Diners Club in Australia will know that many merchants do not accept it. For this reason, Diners Club cards have limited usefulness in Australia and are best used as a supplement to a traditional Visa or MasterCard credit card. But as a companion to a Visa card, this appears to be a handy wallet addition – especially for overseas travel.
As someone with a Diners card who is getting rid of it to go to Amex, you won’t find many places that will take it, most people have never even heard of it or say its been years since I last saw one of those, mainly it’s large supermarkets, airlines and a few other places that take it
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