Articles tagged “american express”

Business travel-oriented companies, including American Express, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, BCD Travel and HRG, are not as large as leisure-oriented Expedia and Priceline, but the business travel agencies are entrenched near the top of the heap, and they aren't going anywhere in the short term.

American Express Global Business Travel now has a new opportunity and $900 million bankroll to reinvent itself. The challenge will be to make meaningful and relatively rapid changes in an organization that historically has been very conservative.

Everyone gets tired of luxury conference hotels—even really expensive ones. Exclusive properties offer the possibility of entertaining in a place you'd like to go if you weren't there on business.

This joint venture sets up a whole new dynamic for American Express Global Business Travel, which can trim its exposure and take advantage of a funding infusion.

The American Express-American Airlines airport lounge deal was a victim of airline consolidation. There's little need to partner with an airline, though, if Amex can build its own lounges at the airports. It's a work in progress, and we'll see how the experiment works out.

American Express call center agents were deceiving travelers and others about the benefits of paying off old debt or the bonus points they'd get when enrolling in certain credit card programs. Not surprising for a credit card company, but shameful nonetheless.

Not much of a shocker, such is the state of the legacy magazine business these days.

Concur has faced intense pushback from the business travel establishment to its open booking initiative. Rebranding it as TripLink is a small bow to that opposition, but the essentials of the program remain the same.

The Orbitz partnership to power American Express Travel contributed about one third of Orbitz's all-important hotel room night growth in the third quarter. Orbitz has been doing some interesting things, including the relaunch of its rewards program, but it is still very rough slog ahead.

The forecast speaks volumes about the pending merger of US Airways with American Airlines because American Express predicts a decline in North America airfares in 2014 -- unless there is further consolidation "among major U.S. airlines." The Department of Justice should cite the forecast in the upcoming antitrust case.