Airbnb and American Express Team up for Online Bookings

Airbnb, a leading home hosting service, announced a new partnership with American Express. Through the agreement, Amex card holders now have the option to use their reward points toward rentals.

“Both the American Express and Airbnb brands stand for travel; we have a rich history as a travel company and Airbnb represents a new frontier in travel,” said Dave Wolf, vice president of global product & business development at American Express. “We have seen an incredible amount of engagement by our customers on their platform, and we always want to go where our customers are.”

Individuals who would like to use their points can access the site by entering their personal Amex login data. When completing a booking, the system will prompt users to either pay for the transaction fully or partially with credits. Customers who link their Amex information with their Airbnb account will see a distinct “American Express Card Member” badge in their profile.

It is important to point out that Airbnb does not have similar collaborations with other card companies, such as MasterCard and Visa. However, American Express currently offers almost identical partnerships with other emerging tech brands, including Uber.

The company’s interest in Airbnb grew after noticing an increase in home rental bookings made by its customers. Additionally, the agreement nurtures the group’s progress in providing extensive travel benefits for loyal clients.

“We had a small partnership around a year ago putting Airbnb on the Amex gift card wall,” highlighted Airbnb’s head of payments and business development Lex Bayer. “The engineering teams at Airbnb and Amex have been working side by side to put this integration together in what has become a seamless customer experience, it really makes it almost trivial for an amex member to decide to use Airbnb.”