With his attorney, Ralph Schneider, Frank McNamara creates Diners Club. The first charge card is offered to 200 people, most of whom are personal friends and acquaintances. Fourteen New York restaurants agree to accept the card. The business expands so rapidly that Diners Club has to change its offices three times. The business begins on the 24th floor of the Empire State Building, and then expands to the 32nd, and finally to the 77th floor. By the end of the year, 20,000 people carry Diners Club cards.

A Diners Club membership costs $3 a year. Major cities where the card is accepted include New York, Miami, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Diners Club charge bills for January total $325,000. Eight auto rental agencies agree to accept the Diners Club card. 35,000 people hold Diners Club cards in January, but by March, the Diners Club claims 42,000 members. In January, 285 establishments accept the Diners Club card, but by March, that number has grown to 330. Diners Club acquires Dine & Sign and hires its president, Alfred Bloomingdale. Diners Club earns a net profit of $60,000. Diners Club Ltd., a U.K. franchise, is founded.

The yearly fee for a Diners Club card is now $5. The card is accepted at 400 restaurants, 30 hotels, 200 car rental agencies, and 5 florists. Frank McNamara retires as Diners Club president to become a sales executive for a lumber company. Bloomingdale and Schneider pay more than $200,000 for McNamara's Diners Club shares.

Diners Club becomes the first internationally accepted charge card when businesses in the U.K., Canada, Cuba, and Mexico agree to accept the card. Diners Club has branch offices in 17 cities, including London and Honolulu. Establishments in England, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club opens franchises in France, Mexico, and the U.K. The advertising industry is responsible for 21% of Diners Club's total billing. 3,000 establishments now accept the Diners Club card. The company claims 60,000 cardholders. Diners Club earns a net profit of $82,000.

Restaurants and hotels in Tangier, Morocco, and other African countries accept Diners Club cards. Diners Club opens a franchise in Spain. Several liquor stores and limousine rental services begin to accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club establishes its annual "Dinah" Award, whereby journalists can pick the best nightclub acts of the year. Diners Club has 130,000 Cardmembers.

Diners Club's stock is listed on the American Stock Exchange. Diners Club opens franchises in Brazil and Australia. Countries that recognize the Diners Club card include Spain, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Syria, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Bermuda, the British West Indies, Venezuela, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, and parts of North Africa. The Hertz Corp. accepts Diners Club cards at its car rental agencies. Diners Club has 200,000 cardholders.

Diners Club issues club gift certificates to its cardholders. Members can give these gift certificates to non-member clients, so that they can charge a specified monetary amount on members' cards. Diners Club acquires Trip-Charge, Inc., a service station charge card company. This acquisition adds 22,000 members to Diners Club. Diners Club issues a Christmas gift catalog. Establishments in Portugal, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, New Zealand, India, Japan, Israel, South Africa, as well as other countries in Central America and West Africa, begin to accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club forms an Australian affiliate. Diners Club has 250,000 cardholders. Diners Club earns a net profit of $493,537.

Founder Frank McNamara dies at age 40. Diners Club creates an Italian affiliate, Diners' Club d'Italia, which is headquartered in Rome. Diners Club franchises also open in Switzerland and Venezuela. Cardholder membership increases at the rate of 15,000 a month. Diners Club has 415,000 Cardmembers. More than 12,000 establishments accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club earns a net profit of $782,000 for the fiscal year.

The IRS begins to require detailed records of business expenses, which results in increased demand for Diners Club cards. Diners Club Deutschland GMBH begins to operate as a franchise in Germany. Diners Club runs its first major TV advertising campaign by sponsoring the season's New York Giants football games. The Diners Club card is accepted by the Sun Ray Drug Company, which operates 165 drugstores in the U.S., and is the country's third largest drugstore chain. This marks the first time that consumers can purchase pharmaceuticals with a charge card. Diners Club acquires the Esquire Club, the nation's second-largest charge card system, with 100,000 cardholders and 6,000 affiliated businesses. Strauss Stores accepts the Diners Club card, marking the first time that an automotive chain honors the card. American Cable and Radio System allows American and Canadian Diners Club cardholders to charge overseas telegrams. The Hilton Hotels Corp. attempts to merge with or acquire Diners Club. Diners Club acquires the Sheraton Central Credit Corporation, a hotel chain that has 800,000 guest-card holders. More than one quarter of the $200,000 that spectators spent at the Floyd Patterson - Roy Harris heavyweight championship is charged on Diners Club cards. Establishments in Chile, Uruguay, and the Belgian Congo begin to accept the Diners Club card. More than 3,000 car dealers accept Diners Club cards. Diners Club enters the travel market when travel agencies in New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New Orleans agree to accept Diners Club cards for purchase of airplane, steamship and cruise tickets. Ford Motor Co. agrees to accept the Diners Club card for purchase of automotive repair and service at Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln dealerships. Diners Club offers travel insurance to its cardholders. L.C. Mayers, a gift store chain, accepts the Diners Club card. Diners Club employs 420 people in its office in New York and 300 in its Los Angeles office. The company also maintains 13 branch offices in North America. 3,000 service stations and garages, including the West Coast's Wilshire Oil chain, accept the Diners Club card. In July, 17,000 businesses in 76 countries accept the Diners Club card. By October, the number of businesses has grown to 19,000. Diners Club has 680,000 Cardmembers and is signing up approximately 200,000 new Cardmembers a year. 15% of Diners Club billing volume comes from advertising executives, 7% from TV executives and 3% from executives in public relations. Diners Club earns a net profit of $1.37 million for the fiscal year.

80,000 Diners Club cardholders reside outside of the U.S. The company's foreign business is 45% greater than it was during the previous year. Diners Club opens franchises in Greece, India, and the Philippines. Diners Club introduces its Women's Division, which gives wives of current cardholders their own Diners Club cards and allows them to charge purchases at New York boutiques, retail stores, beauty salons, charm schools, home furnishings stores, perfume shops, and health resorts. At this time, women constitute 5% of Diners Club's membership. Diners Club has one million members in August. By November, 1.1 million people carry the Diners Club card. Western Airlines accepts the Diners Club card. Avis Rent-a-Car System accepts the Diners Club card. The Chicago White Sox accept the Diners Club card for purchase of tickets at Comiskey Park. Diners Club becomes the first company devoted exclusively to charge cards to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Diners Club talks with several banks about the possibility of selling travelers' checks. Diners Club introduces the first travel accident insurance charge program in the card industry. Because of widespread opposition to credit cards among restaurateurs, Restaurant Management, a trade journal in the field, surveys dozens of restaurant owners to determine the beneficence of credit cards. The magazine concludes that credit cards can be helpful to restaurants. Diners Club introduces the first guaranteed hotel reservation program in the card industry. Diners Club earns a net profit of $1.9 million for the fiscal year.

Diners Club opens franchises in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and New Zealand. Establishments in Bolivia, Ecuador, Yugoslavia, Jordan, Ceylon, Thailand, Okinawa, Suriname and Zanzibar begin to accept the Diners Club card. Northeast Airlines accepts the Diners Club card. Miami's Tropical Park becomes the first racetrack to accept the Diners Club card.

Diners Club now has 1.25 million cardholders. Diners Club opens franchises in Argentina and Austria. Diners Club makes an unsuccessful attempt to merge with the Hilton Credit Corp. Diners Club creates Executive Shopping Service, which sells gifts and other merchandise to members. Diners Club replaces its paper credit card with a plastic version, and contracts with Dashew Business Machines to buy imprinters to rent to its outlets. Diners Club acquires Simpson Factors Corporation and its two subsidiaries, McMullen Factors and Custom Credit Corp., a purchase that the New York Times calls its "first major diversification move." Diners Club raises its $5 annual cardholder fee to $8. 65,000 establishments accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club earns a net profit of $1.86 million.

Service stations that now accept the Diners Club card include Phillips Petroleum Co., Union Oil Co. of California, Pennzoil division of South Penn Oil Co., Jenney Manufacturing Co. and Sunoco. Diners Club opens a franchise in Colombia. Diners Club acquires a majority interest in Southern General Factors, Inc., and Financial Services, Inc. Both companies are based in High Point, North Carolina. Diners Club has about 1 million cardholders in North America.

"The Man from the Diners' Club," a movie starring Danny Kaye, is released. Winsted, Connecticut decrees a "no-cash" day, during which everyone in the town has to make their purchases with Diners Club cards. Danny Kaye is invited to make an appearance. Diners Club South Africa begins operating as a franchise. Diners Club Nordic opens a sub-franchise in Denmark. Loew's Hotels, Inc., which owns hotels in New York and Puerto Rico, accepts the Diners Club card. Trans World Airlines accepts the Diners Club card. Diners Club raises its annual cardholder fee from $8 to $10. Diners Club begins handling the billing for the Gaslight Clubs. Diners Club's net profit for the fiscal year totals $2.38 million.

Diners Club founding partner Ralph E. Schneider dies. Diners Club issues a card for West Germans, which it calls "Finanzpass." It also issues cards in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The Diners Club card is accepted at the New York World's Fair. Diners Club has 1.25 million Cardmembers worldwide. 95,000 establishments accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club earns a net profit of $2.7 million during the fiscal year. Diners Club sponsors an exhibit in the Transportation and Travel Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

American Airlines allows Diners Club Cardmembers to charge air travel. The Diners Club card is honored in Czechoslovakia, marking the first time a charge card is accepted within the Soviet bloc countries. Diners Club introduces computer automation and implements computerized billing procedures. Japan Air Lines accepts the Diners Club card. J. C. Penney attempts to acquire Diners Club. Chase Manhattan Bank attempts to acquire Diners Club. Diners Club earns a net profit of $2.15 million for the fiscal year.

Diners Club decides to include more travel articles in its corporate magazine, and the company changes the publication's title to Signature. Financial establishments in Bulgaria and Hungary become Diners Club agencies. Diners Club cards can now at Kinney parking locations in New York. Sheraton hotel chain chooses to honor only the Diners Club card. The 11,000-member Florists' Transworld Delivery Association agrees to honor the Diners Club card and to use a computer system to track billings. Signature magazine declares it the first time that any credit card billings are handled on a "computer-to-computer basis." Diners Club introduces its "Charge and Go" service, which allows cardholders to make charges at selected travel agents on an extended payment basis. Mexicana Airlines, Alitalia Airlines, Air Canada, Pan American World Airways, Olympic Airways, Lan-Chile Airlines, Air Madagascar, Swissair, AVENSA, LANICA, AREA, Mohawk Airlines, Qantas and Viasa Airlines honor the Diners Club card. Diners Club and Holiday magazine found the Wayfarers Club, a new club for travelers. The Chesapeake & Ohio and Baltimore & Ohio railroads accept the Diners Club card. The Atlanta Braves accept the Diners Club card at baseball games. Rayco AutoService Stores, a division of B.F. Goodrich, accept the Diners Club card. All restaurants affiliated with New York's Restaurant Associates accept the Diners Club card. Sinclair Refining Co., which operates 20,000 service stations in the U.S., Lion Oil service stations and Marathon Oil service stations accept the Diners Club card. Dunhill Personnel System, a staff consultant, now accepts the Diners Club card. U.K. waives International Air Transportation Association regulations that prohibit air fares from being charged on credit cards. U.S., France, Belgium, Mexico, Switzerland and West Germany have already waived these regulations. Diners Club reduces its commission rate for restaurants from 7% of net to 5.5% of gross. The Standard Bank Diners Club, which bought more than 50% of the shares of Diners Club, Ltd., a U.K. franchise, in 1965, engages in a bidding war with the Westminster Bank in order to maintain control of the company. In the end, Westminster Bank acquires additional shares, but Diners Clubretains ownership of one more share than Westminster has.

Diners Club moves into the travel business by purchasing $60 million-volume Fugazy Travel, the third largest travel company in the U.S. Diners Club opens franchises in Ecuador and Peru. Carpati National Travel Office, a Romanian enterprise, becomes a Diners Club agency. Hilton International Hotels accepts Diners Club cards at any of its locations outside the U.S. 130 countries now accept the Diners Club. In comparison, the United Nations only has 122 member countries at this time. Eastern Provincial Airways, Trans-Texas Airways, and Union de Transport Aeriens accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club provides charge cards for the Bank of Delaware, one of eighteen companies for which it provides private label charge cards. Diners Club introduces the card industry's first automatic air travel insurance program for airline tickets purchased with the Diners Club card. Diners Club purchases Reservations, U.S.A., a hotel reservation company in Jackson, Michigan, and forms Reservations World, a computerized travel reservations system for air travel and hotels.

Diners Club now has 1.8 million cardholders. Diners Club franchises open in Israel and Turkey. Polcard Co. Ltd., a Polish enterprise, becomes a Diners Club agency. Lake Central Airlines honors the Diners Club card. Executive Jet Aviation accepts the Diners Club card. Diners Club acquires Creditors Service Inc., a Detroit collection agency. Diners Club acquires National Account Systems and Stores Collection Bureau of Los Angeles. Diners Club acquires SITA World Travel. Diners Club acquires a 51% interest in Budget Travel magazine. Diners Club Ltd., a U.K. franchise, extends its services to Poland. Diners-Fugazy Travel introduces the "European plan" to American-operated trans-Atlantic steamship travel, which involves converting three-class ships to the one-class system, and selling passengers a room only, with no other services included in the price. Diners-Fugazy Travel restores the steamships Independence, Constitution and United States. They also convert the Atlantic into the country's first traveling trade fair ship. Diners Club's Financial Services subsidiary launches Synergon I, an all-purpose credit card combined with a check credit and a credit loan service. Diners Club launches its first sustained consumer ad campaign, using the theme "The Diners Club is for men who know how to spend money." Soon afterward, Diners Club drops its general media advertising because computer problems prohibit the company from handling an increase in membership. Diners Club earns $3 million in net profit for the fiscal year.

Diners Club franchises open in Pakistan and Thailand. Establishments in Russia and Sri Lanka become agencies for Diners Club. Reservations World, a Diners Club subsidiary, and RCA produce the first industry-wide hotel-motel computerized reservation system. This system allows people to call a single toll-free number to make a hotel reservation anywhere in the U.S. Intourist, a Soviet travel organization, agrees to accept the Diners Club card for hotels, restaurants, theater tickets, car rentals and other travel expenditures in Moscow and Leningrad. Financial Services, a Diners Club subsidiary, produces a Ford credit card for purchasing car repairs on credit at Ford dealerships. Diners Club forms a new subsidiary, Diners Franchise Systems. Diners Club forms a new subsidiary, International Floatels, which creates the world's first completely waterborne hotel. Diners Club forms Inter-Service Club Card Inc., a joint venture with Military Purchase System Inc. The new company will offer credit facilities to military personnel overseas. Diners Club enters the car leasing field by negotiating leasing contracts for its cardholders with the Lincoln-Mercury division. American Express enters this field at about the same time. Diners Club sells Reservations World to an American Airlines-Continental Insurance partnership. Diners Club Yugoslavia is founded in December.

Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges accept the Diners Club card. The Hilton Hotels Corporation (U.S.) honors the Diners Club Card. Diners Club introduces a credit card authorization program that utilizes an auditory response system manufactured by the Audac Corporation. Diners Club sells International Floatels, Inc., to ex-CEO Alfred Bloomingdale and a group of private investors. Diners Club sells Diner-Fugazy Travel's incentive and executive travel divisions to General Leisure Inc. Diners Club installs a Honeywell computer system to implement an audio response authorization system that will provide voice replies to inquiries from businesses about the validity of customer credit cards.

Eight hundred Yugoslavian businesses now accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club moves its service center from New York City to Denver. Worldwide Diners Club charge volume is $529 million.

The Diners Club card is now accepted in the Soviet cities of Odessa, Yalta, Kiev, Erevan, Sochi, Tallin and Tbilisi. Diners Club establishes eight mail "drops" in Communist East European cities for use by American travelers.

Twenty-one additional Soviet cities agree to accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club franchises open in Indonesia, Panama and Singapore. Diners Club creates a Media Services division.

The producers of "Jumpers," a play opening at the Billy Rose Theater, introduce the credit card to Broadway by allowing customers to order tickets over the phone using Diners Club. Five out of every six credit card-carrying foreigners entering the U.S. use Diners Club cards. Worldwide Diners Club charge volume is $659 million.

Diners Club introduces the first Corporate Card program in the industry. Diners Club claims more than 2 million cardholders.

Diners Club franchises open in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Diners Club is now accepted at 350,000 establishments.

Diners Club begins offering a $15,000 credit line to its Cardmembers. Other new services available to its members include free Thomas Cook travelers' checks and $30,000 in free life insurance on flights charged with Diners Club. Diners Club franchises open in Chile and Uruguay. Diners Club introduces its Doublecard. Customers can maintain one card for business and another for personal expenses. Communist-run department stores in Hong Kong begin to accept Diners Club cards. Many view this as a prelude to credit card acceptance in China.

Diners Club opens franchises in Guatemala and Qatar. Diners Club has nearly 1 million Cardmembers in Europe out of 3.5 million worldwide. 400,000 establishments accept the card.

Continental Corp. Chairman John B. Ricker, Jr. introduces Diners Club cards in China, where it becomes the first credit card used in that country. Establishments in Honduras and Portugal become Diners Club agencies. Diners Club Norge opens in Norway as a subfranchise of Diners Club Nordic. 450,000 establishments accept the Diners Club card. There are 4.2 million Diners Club Cardmembers.

Citicorp acquires Diners Club from the Continental Corp. Diners Club du Maroc, a Moroccan enterprise, opens as a subfranchise of Diners Club France. Worldwide Diners Club charge volume is $4.1 billion, more than five times what it was in 1974. Diners Club claims 3.9 million Cardmembers.

Diners Club opens franchises in El Salvador and Scandinavia. Diners Club Sweden opens as a subfranchise of Diners Club Nordic. Diners Club begins a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to target business travelers. In its largest ad campaign to that date, the company proclaims, "You can drop our name where it counts."

General Services Administration selects Diners Club to be the official provider of credit cards for federal employees. Diners Club Finland opens as a subfranchise of Diners Club Nordic. Diners Club introduces a new plastic card design to make its card more difficult to counterfeit.

Diners Club creates the industry's first rewards program: Club Rewards. Cardmembers can earn frequent flier miles and merchandise for dollars charged. A Diners Club franchise opens in South Korea. Vice President George Bush advertises the Diners Club card by appearing in a promotional photo on the cover of Management, the federal Office of Personnel Management's corporate magazine.

Citicorp announces that it will focus its Diners Club marketing efforts on business travelers. A Diners Club franchise opens in Egypt. Travel Consultants, a Bangladesh establishment, becomes an agent of Diners Club Hong Kong.

Diners Club launches Club Gifts, a gift buying service. Diners Club has 5.7 million Cardmembers charging a total of $9.6 billion.

A Diners Club franchise opens in Bahrain. Diners Club Cyprus opens as a subfranchise of Diners Club Greece. Diners Club de Tunisie, a Tunisian enterprise, opens as a subfranchise of Diners Club France. Diners Club Benelux opens a branch office in Luxembourg. Diners Club Cardmembers can access cash through ATMs worldwide.

Diners Club wins first prestigious Freddie Award for the "Best Frequent Traveler Affinity Charge/Credit Card," as voted upon by frequent business travelers. Diners Club introduces free rental car collision damage waiver insurance on cars rented with the Diners Club card.

A Diners Club franchise opens in Taiwan. Diners Club begins a "We Take Care of Business" ad campaign to target business travelers.

Life magazine declares Frank McNamara one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century. A Diners Club franchise opens in Costa Rica. Iceland's Islandsbankin becomes a Diners Club agency. A travel company in Mongolia becomes an agency for Diners Club. Diners Club Venezuela opens a branch office in the Netherlands Antilles. Citicorp sells its minority interest in the Diners Club Japanese franchise to Fuji Bank Group and Japan Travel Bureau.

Diners Club International Ltd. issues a new British Airways charge card, which allows Cardmembers to cash checks at British Airways offices, receive discounts on duty-free merchandise and obtain priority seating on British Airways flights. Diners Club begins a new advertising campaign with the theme "The International Symbol for Yes." A Nigerian bank becomes a Diners Club agency. Diners Club Paraguay is formed as a branch office of Diners Club Argentina. Diners Club places increased emphasis on co-brand cards, which are issued by Diners Club in conjunction with another company. Co-brand cards issued by Diners Club in 1991 include the British Airways and the Scandinavian Airline Systems cards.

Citibank Canada acquires enRoute, a Canadian charge card and merges it with Diners Club to create the Diners Club enRoute card. This merger adds 200,000 Cardmembers to Diners Club. Diners Club enRoute operates as a subfranchise of Diners Club USA. Diners Club has 7 million Cardmembers charging a total of $19 billion. More than 2.2 million establishments accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club opens a franchise in the Czech Republic. A Diners Club agency forms in Nicaragua. Diners Club launches a year-long Power Market Test in Dallas and Minneapolis.

A Diners Club franchise opens in Saudi Arabia. Diners Club Slovak Republic opens as a Diners Club agency. Diners Club upgrades its Club Rewards system by adding Premier Rewards and Points Plus Charge programs. Diners Club allows its Cardmembers to redeem Club Rewards points for savings bonds, restaurant meals and catalog merchandise.

Diners Club reintroduces its card to Slovenia by opening up a new Diners Club franchise in the country. Diners Club agencies are created in Ghana and Malta. Diners Club subfranchises open in Macedonia and Slovenia. The World Bank gives its corporate card account to Diners Club. Diners Club establishes the Inaugural Diners Club Matches professional golf tournament.

Ghana, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Vietnam and Sri Lanka accept the Diners Club card. Diners Club introduces Premier Performances, a program to help travel agencies increase their business. A Diners Club franchise opens in Hungary. A Diners Club subfranchise opens in Albania. Diners Club sponsors an exhibit of stained glass artwork at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Diners Club repurchases 81% of the stock of Diners Club France from Assurances Generales de France.

Diners Club launches its World Wide Web site: www.dinersclub.com.

Diners Club expands multinational corporate card dominance with key global account signings.

A panel sponsored by the American Management Association International declares that Frank McNamara's Diners Club card was one of the "75 greatest management decisions ever made." Diners Club wins the prestigious Freddie Award for the "Best Frequent Traveler Affinity Charge/Credit Card."

In a partnership with Diners Club, Charles Schwab Corporation turns $2 million in annual net cost savings with the implementation of the Diners Club Global Vision T&E management software. For the second year running, Diners Club wins the prestigious Freddie Award for the "Best Frequent Traveler Affinity Charge/Credit Card." Diners Club is selected as the global corporate Card for British Petroleum.