Diners Club closing down in Australia
Cards will stop working from January 2024.
Diners Club Australia is shutting the restaurant door.
The charge card company has announced that personal Diners Club cards will no longer be usable from 30 January 2024. After that, cards won't be able to earn points and lounge access won't be available using the card.
"From 1 November 2023 we will pro-rata refund any Annual Fees and Rewards Fees charged on your Diners Club Personal Card and Companion Mastercard for the previous 12 months," the company's announcement notes. "This refund should appear in your November or December statement."
Any Rewards Points must be redeemed by 30 July 2024. Some travel insurance acquired through travel purchases will remain valid until later in 2024.
Diners Club stopped accepting new applications for cards locally following the acquisition of Citigroup in Australia by NAB. That buyout was announced in 2021 and came into effect in mid-2022.
Diners Club hasn't yet made a statement around the future of business Diners Club cards in Australia. However, the application links on its site for business cards are no longer working, so their days also seem numbered. Australian Frequent Flyer reports that forum members who have asked to switch their personal cards to business ones have been told it won't be possible.
Diners Club has a long history in Australia. It launched here in 1956, as a franchise of the main Diners Club which had started in the US in 1950.
That made it Australia's first-ever charge card, decades before Bankcard launched in 1975.
Acceptance of Diners Club by merchants has declined in recent years, and current cards in Australia include a companion Mastercard to make them more flexible.
Charge cards remain a niche part of the Australian market, with just 8.3% of transactions made using them, according to Finder analysis of RBA transaction data. American Express is by far the biggest player in the space.
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