While I knew of the American Express Travel portal, discounts aren’t what that portal brought to mind. It is most well known for providing access to more luxurious accommodations and experiences. However, as you will see, American Express Travel can be used to get some decent discounts on your future travel.
The most useful features of American Express Travel are the benefit of the American Express Platinum Card. While this card comes with a high annual fee, it carries a wide range of benefits (such as Centurion Lounge Access – see our review of the DFW Centurion Lounge). One of the rarely touted benefits is American Express Travel. In fact, the only real mention of American Express Travel is that cardholders will receive 5x points per dollar when booking travel services through this portal. As I discovered, there is much more than that to get excited about.
Before getting too far into this post, I must put a caution out about credit cards. It is my belief that credit cards can provide a benefit for one segment of the population. But for others, they are a net negative. It all depends on how you use the card, how it affects your spending habits, and how you can maintain self-control. If you carry a balance on a credit card, all benefits are lost to the interest charges. At the time of writing this, citizens of the United States had over $770 billion in credit card debt according to statista.com. This is a major problem. Please don’t let something like American Express Travel discounts be a reason you open a card and go into debt.
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What is American Express Travel?
American Express Travel is a travel booking portal exclusive to American Express Platinum and Centurion cardholders. At its core, it is very similar to kayak.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com, etc… Cardholders can book hotels, flights, rental cars, cruises, and travel packages through the interface.
What makes American Express Travel different than other booking portals is the perks it provides cardholders. One of the main perks is discounts on international premium cabin travel. While this may be beneficial for someone who books international premium cabin travel, I never do. It’s hard for me to justify spending over $2,000 on a plane ticket when I can often plan an entire vacation for that amount, even if I do save ~$200 with the cardmember benefit.
American Express Travel also runs its upscale hotel program, Fine Hotels and Resorts, through this platform. Fine Hotels and Resorts isn’t a hotel discount program, but rather a platform that provides additional perks to travelers. When booking a hotel stay through this program, benefits include a room upgrade, daily breakfast for two, guaranteed 4 PM late check-out, noon check-in, and a stay credit of $100 or more. If you are in the market for one of these hotels, the additional perks can be quite nice.
Unannounced Benefits
Until recently, I thought American Express Travel was only Fine Hotels and Resorts and the international premium airfare discounts. I was proven wrong.
While searching for flights for upcoming trips, I noticed a few additional perks of booking through American Express Travel. These additional perks included lower-priced flights and Insider Fares. These are reviewed in greater detail below.
Lower Priced Flights
In many searches, I noticed flights were pricing lower on American Express Travel than on Google Flights. While these weren’t huge discounts, each ticket was an average of $22 – $44 cheaper via American Express Travel. For domestic US flights and the relatively small amount of work, this was a nice discount.
Test #1 – BWI to TLH
I first found these savings when searching for flights from Baltimore’s BWI airport to Tallahassee, Florida. A round-trip flight from Baltimore to Tallahassee in economy class leaving November 20th, 2021, and returning on November 27th, 2021 was priced at $523. This was the price from Google Flights (shown below) as well as from the American Airlines website.
For comparison, the exact same flights (date and time), priced for $479 on American Express Travel. This represents a savings of $44 per ticket over booking directly with the airline. While it’s not hundreds of dollars per ticket, it is an easy $44 per ticket savings. I will gladly take that.
Test #2 – LGA to SAN
To confirm that this wasn’t a fluke, I performed several other price comparisons to understand how the American Express Travel discount worked. Next, I looked at flights from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to San Diego, California. A ticket on this itinerary was $252 booked directly with the airline as shown by Google Flights.
When pricing the exact same flights (date and time) on American Express Travel, it again came out ahead. American Express was pricing this round-trip flight for $220. This is a savings of $32 per ticket as compared to the direct booking number above.
Test #3 – PHL to DOH
Finally, to test a more expensive example, I checked an international economy flight. You’ll recall that discounted premium cabin international travel is a published benefit of the American Express Travel portal. Discounts on international economy flights are not a benefit. I priced a round trip flight on a random date in April 2022 from Philadelphia to Doha, Qatar. This flight priced at $1,574 per ticket via Google Flights or direct booking with the airline.
For comparison, when searching the exact same flight, date, and time, American Express Travel priced this ticket at $919. That is a much more substantial savings of $655 per ticket which convinced me that checking this booking portal is worthwhile when I book future flights.
Flight Discount Analysis
Looking back on these three examples, there doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to the discount provided. The discounts ranged from $32 on the low end to $655 on the high end. In terms of percentages, American Express Travel’s savings ranged from 8.4% to 41.6% of the direct-booking ticket price. Astute readers may also notice that American Airlines appears most often in the data points above. While I also saw discounts on Delta during my test searches, American Airlines had by far the most and largest discounts via American Express Travel.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that American Express Travel doesn’t provide a discount in every situation. American Express Travel does not allow booking a basic economy ticket. They instead only show the main economy fare and higher fare classes. The basic economy tickets are obviously cheaper options. If basic economy works for your travel style, this would be one case where this booking avenue isn’t helpful. Additionally, other flights are sometimes just priced higher than they are via booking direct for whatever reason. Always check that what you are booking is the lowest price available.
Insider Fares
While checking flight prices for a future trip, I stumbled across another perk of American Express Travel, Insider Fares. The Insider Fares perk is a discount provided when booking select flights using Membership Rewards points to cover the entire purchase price.
Insider Fare Example – CUN to SDF
In this particular instance, I was looking at flights from Cancun, Mexico to Louisville, Kentucky. The cheapest flights I could find via a direct booking channel were $277 – $299 for a one-way ticket.
When attempting to compare these prices to American Express Travel, I saw Insider Fares being advertised in the search results. Interestingly, flights that were all priced the same via direct booking channels were pricing differently for Insider Fares. As an example, this American Airline flight below was priced at $299 dollars via direct booking. American Express offered to book this flight for 14,747 Membership Rewards points. This works out to 2.02 cents/point in value for this redemption. That is a pretty good redemption for Membership Rewards points. On top of this, you will earn frequent flyer miles as this will appear as a cash booking to the airline.
Two flight itineraries from Cancun to Louisville priced at the lowest level of 14,747. Almost all other flight itineraries were available for 23,687 or 28,117 points. These two redemption levels create a value of 1.26 and 1.06 cents per point. 1.26 cents per point is only slightly better than what you could cash out Membership Rewards points for (1.25 cents/point). Membership Rewards points are worth much more than 1.06 cents per point, so I would be unlikely to use points at either of these levels. Again, there didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to what was priced at the lowest point values; therefore, check all your options. Some Insider Fares represent great value while other redemption options should be avoided.
Available Airlines and Limitations
Finally, it’s important to mention that not all airlines are represented on the American Express Travel booking portal. Budget and low-cost carriers are absent from the listings. This means that for domestic United States travel, you will find United, Delta, and American Airlines on American Express Travel. Airlines like Southwest, Frontier, JetBlue, and Spirit aren’t bookable. If some of these airlines fit your travel plans, it pays to check their prices on another site. As with most things in life, you want to make sure you are getting the best deal.
Bottom Line
If you have access to the American Express Travel portal, it’s worth a check when you’re booking a flight. Most of the time if you are traveling a full-service airline like American, Delta, or United, the portal will save a few dollars. Even better, in some circumstances, the Insider Fares can save you much more and give some great value for your points.
