American Express pushed its travel business off the official books to a great extent with its joint venture for American Express Global Business Travel but Amex's credit card business is still very much tied to airline relationships.
Credit cards are now more secure in the U.S. with chips required for all new cards and European cards have had these chips for the past decade, which helps explain why generally less secure debit cards aren't brought on trips as much anymore.
The local and experiential trend in travel -- you know, the kind of trips that millennials are said to be in love with -- has gotten to the point that MasterCard and others are curating and offering these escapes for their customers. It is a natural fit as travelers knock off cities on their bucket lists, using their credit and debit cards.
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.
In a trend among developing nations, locals get mobile phones before bank accounts making mobile payments an innovative solution for both the local economy and nascent tourism sector.
You have about a one in three chance to redeem miles with US Airways, a survey found, and that doesn't bode well for frequent flyers in the American Airlines-US Airways merger.
Offering their services online isn't a "favor" that airlines and other travel companies are doing to consumers, but in fact the opposite: online sales bring down the overall costs in most cases for these companies, and finally rules are on parity in UK to reflect that.