American Express Travel Is Right on Point for Certain Millennial Travelers
Photo Credit: Audrey Hendley, president of American Express Travel, making a point on stage during a sponsored session at Skift Global Forum in New York City on Sept. 20, 2022. Skift / Neil van Niekerk
Skift Take
The American Express Travel website and mobile experience won't win user experience awards. But it may have something better for cardmembers — private fares, other negotiated deals, perks and points redemption.
A majority of American Express' new customers — 60 percent — in the second quarter belonged to the Generation Z and millennial generations, a metric very much noticed at subsidiary American Express Travel.
"Their mindset around culturally impactful travel is helping to shape what we do," Audrey Hendley, president of American Express Travel, told Skift last week.
American Express Travel, the leisure travel business that handles cardmembers' vacations and pleasure trips, became the sixth largest U.S. travel agency in 2021, overtaking Flight Centre and Internova.
That ranking is from Travel Weekly's 2022 Power List, which pegged American Express Travel at $4.9 billion in 2021 sales. This figure was just 71 percent of the travel agency's 2019 numbers, but parent company American Express reported that in April cardmembers' total travel and entertainment spending, including for hotels, flights, car rentals and cruises, as well as restaurants and concert
