American Express, Mastercard and Visa Don't Agree on Travel’s Recovery Timeline

Travel spending has roared back to life over the past three months, despite the Omicron variant, according to three credit card giants.

American Express, Visa and Mastercard all posted quarterly earnings this week, reporting improved spending as travel restrictions ease, in some cases beating 2019 levels. However, only one predicted there'll be a full recovery by the end of this year. Here’s what they had to say.

The headline: Its 2021 fourth-quarter revenue was $12.1 billion, up 31 percent on the same period in 2020.

Views on travel's recovery: American Express had a good fourth quarter, which covers the three months ending Dec. 31, but it’s the most cautious of the trio. It saw “tremendous momentum” for travel at the turn of the year, according to its CEO and chairman, but it has raised questions over how long that momentum can last.

“When we looked at travel bookings in the fourth quarter, it was 24 percent up over 2019,” said Steve Squeri during an earnings call on Tuesday. “When we look at the first couple of weeks in January, we're 44 percent up over 2019. So, we have tremendous momentum entering 2022.”

Overall, American Express’s travel and entertainment spending reached 82 percent of 2019 levels in the quarter, and it predicts this will eventually recover — but at varying pace