Diners club companion card

[theblank]

Has anyone extensively used the diners whilst traveling overseas?
I have been told by my sup card holders that its not widely accepted in south korea and singapore.

of course! Diners acceptance is mostly USA and Europe from memory. You definitely cant expect to use a Diners in Asia outside of major internationals.

I was able to use Diners anywhere in USA that I tried to use it.

 

[Legoman]

of course! Diners acceptance is mostly USA and Europe from memory. You definitely cant expect to use a Diners in Asia

And yet it claims to be a RuPay card for India, BC card for South Korea, UnionPay card for China, JCB card for Japan as well as the more obvious Discover card for USA and of course the Diners Club card it is primarily branded as being.

India, China, South Korea and Japan qualify as being a fairly big chunk of Asia population-wise I would have thought.

 

[FTS]

And yet it claims to be a RuPay card for India, BC card for South Korea, UnionPay card for China, JCB card for Japan as well as the more obvious Discover card for USA and of course the Diners Club card it is primarily branded as being.

India, China, South Korea and Japan qualify as being a fairly big chunk of Asia population-wise I would have thought.

Just attempted to book on the hilton site who accepts discover, visa, mc and jcb.

Our diners got denied, called up CS to find out whats going on, they confirmed that if the merchant accepts diners club, then our cards will work, if it's only discovery, then it *might* work.

 

[Chicken]

India, China, South Korea and Japan qualify as being a fairly big chunk of Asia population-wise I would have thought.

Hence Diners has good acceptance in South Korea, including small independent shops. My friend went in Sep for 1 week and created 3 pages of Diners transactions in her Citi statement, and non of them are major / chains.

Doesn't mean you should use this Diners overseas, it is more expensive than AmEx

 

[Legoman]

Doesn't mean you should use this Diners overseas, it is more expensive than AmEx

For what reason do you say that? The merchant surcharges are greater for Diners vs Amex? The currency conversion margins/fees are greater for Diners vs Amex?
Which specific Amex card are you comparing the CB Diners against to make that call?

 

[Chicken]

For what reason do you say that?

I have posted some numbers earlier in this thread, but it seems to somehow attracted a bunch of trolls, so I would just say that you can check those posts.

AmEx is smack bang on 2.5% whereas Diners was consistently 3+ % above

 

[Legoman]

I have posted some numbers earlier in this thread, but it seems to somehow attracted a bunch of trolls, so I would just say that you can check those posts.

AmEx is smack bang on 2.5% whereas Diners was consistently 3+ % above

Fair enough, good to know. I'll be travelling to the US later this year and was hoping there might be some definitive answer on the worth or otherwise of using the Diners overseas in place of something like the 28° card instead which has a long and known history of being good value and NOT cloaking currency forex charges.

It seems there is a lot of scepticism about the no-forex fee claim by Diners Club/Citibank on this card. I think much of that possibly stems from their reluctance to provide a means of transparent inspection and interrogation of how they determine the currency exchange rate on purchases made using the card. When details are kept away from critical independent review, then it's human nature to some extent to question the motives behind that and naturally assume the worst. Entirely justified when you're talking about the Australian banking environment of recent times.

 

[tlam]

Has anyone extensively used the diners whilst traveling overseas?
I have been told by my sup card holders that its not widely accepted in south korea and singapore.

I went to Hawaii and Japan last month and I didn’t have any problems of using Diners card. It was accepted mostly everywhere.

 

[FTS]

I went to Hawaii and Japan last month and I didn’t have any problems of using Diners card. It was accepted mostly everywhere.

Fantastic, exactly what I needed to know! Thanks Mr Lam.

 

[theblank]

It seems there is a lot of scepticism about the no-forex fee claim by Diners Club/Citibank on this card.

Citibank definitely doesn't charge a Forex fee. Diners however sets their own rate. Its nowhere near 3% over spot though

 

[oz_mark]

Diners has a sort of forex calculator on their mobile site. Not sure how close it is to what happens in Australia though,
https://m.dinersclub.com/dcimobileweb/action/ProcessCurrency

 

[Bagpuss]

I've just signed down for the Citi Platinum Visa and took the Diners option. This all started because I have the Citibank Plus Transaction account for overseas use and I seem to have now moved all my banking over to Citi (their savings rates are pretty decent).
So onto this Diners card which I knew wasn't going to be a lot of use domestically, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Over the weekend I used it with:
Uber (Accepts as a Discover card)
Coles (I inserted the card, it then said to swipe, swiped and entered PIN .. I can live with that for extra points.)
Ticketek (I also looked at Ticketmaster out of interest and they accept it too.)
Wilson Parking (Had to insert, no issue doing that)
Vodafone (the credit card fee is a little lower than AMEX, obviously higher than Visa/MC)

Shortly I'll be using at BP, I know they accept as I looked at their list of accepted credit cards and it was there. I'm planning on inserting the card into the terminal.

In addition I used the card on an international USD transaction and the conversation was better than google searching the conversion (sorry not overly in-depth about conversions).

I knew usage of the Diners card was going to be low, but this is better than I first thought so I'm happy with it. When I'm in the US I'm hoping to extensively use the Diners card, though I know it's not widely accepted in other countries such as the UK.

As per a number of comments I have read, they simply need to obtain an agreement with PayPal to unlock a lot more retailers.

 

[I love to travel]

I recently signed on for 300k bonus points plus linked diners card with $1000 minimum monthly spend. Do diners transactions count towards the minimum spend? Thanks

 

[Bagpuss]

I recently signed on for 300k bonus points plus linked diners card with $1000 minimum monthly spend. Do diners transactions count towards the minimum spend? Thanks

Yes they do. I sent them a message on Facebook and they confirmed it does count.

(At the end of the day the $1000 minimum states it's a statement balance. As it's a single statement it's a single final balance.)

 

[I love to travel]

Yes they do. I sent them a message on Facebook and they confirmed it does count.

Thanks. Has anyone just spent on the Diners card and can confirm this?

 

[gizzard]

I applied for an additional card holder against my account. Things didn't go smoothly but eventually they got their visa card. No Diners card arrived. I contacted Citi about this and they told me that they have a software glitch which is preventing Diners from being sent out to additional card holders but it will be fixed "soon".

Anyone else found this or is this just Citi bull?

 

[nickomac]

I applied for an additional card holder against my account. Things didn't go smoothly but eventually they got their visa card. No Diners card arrived. I contacted Citi about this and they told me that they have a software glitch which is preventing Diners from being sent out to additional card holders but it will be fixed "soon".

Anyone else found this or is this just Citi bull?

I tried to get one for one of my additional cardholders last week and was told the same thing - apparently when they fix it additional cardholders should just get them sent out...

 

[VintageDom]

I'm the opposite. I don't expect anyone to actually pay for a card. The very idea fills me with horror. None of my cards have ever cost me a cent/point.

I'm in total agreement about not paying for credit/charge cards.
They make their money from the merchant fees -not from me!

 

[kpro]

After a trip around Asia, I've found that the card is accepted everywhere in Japan with an eftpos terminal, and effectively no-where in Singapore or Malaysia. In the latter 2 countries, terminals which support JCB or UnionPay will bring up a message saying card not supported.

 

[gizzard]

I'm in South Korea and am finding that the Diners is accepted in virtually every place although they're not quite used to having to swipe cards and look for a chip.