I don't think you're missing much. It seems that what we have now with PTS is not materially different than calling Expedia to book something, with the exception that PTS will take calls for new reservations and not just to support existing reservations. I think it's a stretch to consider the people that handle these calls "travel agents." Rather, they're just people that were hired off the street and trained to work in a call center to do a specific task. A travel agent is someone that chose that line of work as a career and in addition to being trained on the systems used and provider policy, have a genuine interest in travel and a personal knowledge base and set of experiences. You don't seem to get any of that these days with Amex. I used to like to have an actual travel agent to help with things on the occasion when I needed it, but these days, it seems that the only useful purpose the serve is to arrange for Amex-specific offers that you can't book online yourself.