Amex Launches Travel App With 5 Key Options for Travelers

For years, reserving journey via American Express meant logging right into a desktop browser and clicking via the Amex Travel portal. It labored, however in a world the place vacationers have grown used to glossy apps from airways and resort chains, the expertise usually felt clunky.

Thankfully, American Express has lastly launched a brand new, devoted Amex Travel App, a cellular hub designed to assist card members plan, e book, and handle their journeys in a single place. The rollout comes as journey loyalty applications and bank card issuers are racing to win the eye (and spend) of vacationers who more and more count on seamless digital instruments alongside premium perks.

The app is presently out there for obtain on iOS units; Android smartphones will be capable to obtain it within the coming weeks.

Here’s a better have a look at what the brand new app gives—and the options that can seemingly be most helpful for vacationers.

A single hub for reserving flights, inns, and automobiles

The headline operate of the brand new Amex app is all-in-one reserving. Instead of toggling amongst airline apps, resort websites, and third-party platforms, vacationers can now e book flights, inns, and automotive leases via a single cellular interface.

The app additionally features a wish-list possibility the place customers can bookmark inns or itineraries to revisit later. For indecisive planners—or anybody evaluating locations or property choices whereas ready for PTO approval—this implies fewer open browser tabs and extra organized decision-making.

Currently, all inns which might be out there to e book are pulled from Amex’s Fine Hotels + Resorts and the Hotel Collection applications. No new stock for inns has been added. Note that the reserving app is separate from the common Amex app, which permits cardholders to examine their transactions and make bank card funds.

Courtesy of Warren Street Hotel

Seamless rewards bookings and advantages

Crucially, the app integrates Amex’s present ecosystem of rewards into the reserving course of. Members pays with money, factors, or a mixture of the 2. That flexibility makes it simpler to maximise factors by permitting customers to check the associated fee in factors versus money.

Cardholders ought to make sure that to establish any additional perks mechanically connected to sure bookings—like complimentary breakfasts or assured late checkout at Fine Hotels + Resorts properties—that would tip the scales when deciding the place to remain.

Centurion lounge wait instances

If you’ve ever hustled throughout airport terminals solely to search out the lounge at capability, the brand new app gives some severe reduction. Real-time lounge wait instances at the moment are displayed, letting vacationers determine whether or not it’s value heading to the lounge—or whether or not they need to be part of a digital ready record earlier than leaving their gate space.

This replace underscores how crowded airport lounges have develop into within the postpandemic journey surge. Both Delta and Capital One have confronted backlash for lengthy traces exterior their lounges, and Amex’s transfer alerts an effort to ease friction for loyal cardholders who’ve grown annoyed with the lounge squeeze.

Curated inspiration

The app is about greater than logistics—it additionally goals to spark concepts for the place to go subsequent. A brand new inspiration feed blends vacation spot guides, resort spotlights, and themed itineraries drawn from Amex’s community of journey companions.

Instead of ranging from scratch with a search bar, vacationers can browse these curated choices for issues like inns value planning a visit round, and trending locations, the best way they may flip via {a magazine} or scroll social media.

A digital journey memento

One of the extra playful options is Amex Passport, a sort of digital stamp e book that permits cardholders to gather digital stamps tied to locations they go to.

These aren’t simply icons—they are often customized with highlights (a memorable dinner, a favourite museum) and saved as a digital memento that’s shareable by way of social media or textual content. While it might not attraction to each traveler and hinges on making worldwide purchases via Amex (one thing not each traveler does usually), for these searching for a contemporary riff on paper passport stamps in an period when bodily passport stamps are disappearing, it could possibly be a enjoyable providing.