LetsGoToo

As a follow up to not being able to pay with money for Insider Fares, I called American Express today. Apparently, this is a known issue that they are trying to fix.

In the meantime, just log out of your account and complete the booking that way.

stheller

Has anyone taken advantage of the less-restricted fares that American is providing to Amex, at the same fares as the usual $200 fee for change tickets? I just bought a few business ("domestic first class") tickets with the lesser restrictions. You still have to pay Amex's $39/ticket fee for changes, but that's still a lot better than $200 a pop!

rambutan

I've just had a really bad evening. I landed in Boston and went to my hotel - which I had booked through Amex Travel - to find out they had no booking for me. The hotel was also sold out. So I called the Amex 800# and they booked me into another hotel. Made my way over there and guess what... the front desk had no booking for me.

After waiting on hold with Amex in the lobby for a long while, the agent said they were talking to the hotel manager and were going to fax him the reservation information. Like a dummy, I said thanks and let the agent go, and continued to wait. I should have insisted they keep my call active until the situation was resolved. About 20 minutes later I approached the front desk. The manager said he was supposed to get a fax from Amex but did not receive it.

The manager just made a fresh reservation for me and checked me in.

I'm in the room now and Amex called me to let me know they are "working on the problem." I told them I've already checked in on my own, and I want them to cancel and refund the reservation they made for me. (prepaid) The agent said he would have to call the hotel first before doing this. Geez.

This is the first time I have used Amex Travel for a hotel booking. (It will be my last time.) Is this kind of thing typical?

Nicksta

This seems to be occurring with increasing frequency. Yes, it is common.

I showed up at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas - no reservation, so I showed them my Amex confirmation page. They called Amex Travel, who only gave the front desk the runaround until they finally cancelled it out and made me a new reservation.

At the Hyatt in Kuala Lumpur, same story. Amex said they would call me back shortly when it was sorted. Never happened. I was not surprised.

Most recently - the Peninsula Paris. The rates at checkout were completely different from the Amex reservation. Both companies refused to take responsibility for that one. Amex said because it was not prepaid and they do not collect a fee, that they are not responsible for the rates displayed on their website.

I now refuse to book through them and encourage everyone to stay far far far away from booking through Amex travel.

AAExpDFW

I also refuse to use amex travel. It isn't worth the hassle. Ever.

The only thing I use is Fine Hotels. Even then after making a booking I go to the hotel website and make sure everything is as it should be. So far, knock on wood, never had an issue.

But I can't say the same of general amex travel.

slm9555

I went to book a flight last night on Amex travel to get 5x on the business platinum card. The flight on united.com was $826 and the exact same flight on Amex travel was about $1,200. This is pretty rediculious! How am I supposed to use Amex travel when it's an overpriced rip off?

mia

Is the lower fare available on expedia.com or priceline.com?

slm9555

I just checked expedia and the same flight is available for the same price that I purchased directly through United. Amex travel would of been a huge rip off.

michelle227

I have not encountered that issue with the numerous flights I booked in the past month. All have been domestic flights originating at the same airports (series of one-way flights to accommodate scheduling). I actually found one at a price that was LOWER than I was seeing when I looked at flights in another window on matrix.ita

Conversely, I have had an occasion (not for the upcoming travel) where pricing pingponged up and down in the span of just a few minutes even on the airline's site.

NoStressHere

Amex is charging double on flights!

Really, in at least two cases recently, they are charging at least double what you can book elsewhere. First time was ATL-ROC-ATL.

Then today I tried BNA-LGA-BNA in first. Amex was more than double what Orbitz, Expedia and Delta.com offered for the very same flights.

Tried to explain to chat person. Got nowhere. Would email but their travel folks have no email. Will just take business elsewhere.

angelsun

In my mind American Express offers upscale products. My wife and I have multiple high-end cards, and we put most of our purchase on amex card. However their travel product, amextravel.com, is terrible. I keep getting weird errors in different cases.

For a couple of times, when I purchased ticket, at the very last step when I submitted all information, I got error "payment cannot be processed". When I called them, they told me it's due to my card not going through and transfer me to card dept. Then card dept told me they don't see any charge on my card and they didn't decline anything. So you never know what's going wrong. And for some other cases, I get a blue screen with "internal server error". I called them, and agent got the same error. They didn't know why but told me probably due to system upgrade.

What's even more ridiculous is, no matter what time I call them, day or night, weekday or weekend, the phone-bot keeps telling me call volume is higher than usual. I never got luck to call them at "usual" time. And the bot sometimes suggested me to call next week! yes, next week, not even tomorrow. I feel pretty bad to be fooled.

Every time I used amextravel.com, I always come up with this question: if not for the 50% back points redemption, who the **ck will use amextravel.com?

angelsun

I also saw higher air ticket price on AmexTravel, although most of the time it's the same as airline's own website. I read their T&C and they only price match hotels, not airfare. So I guess they probably know some airfares are higher than actual. Make sure to check prices on orbitz or expedia.

Antonio8069

I only use them to access the $200 travel credit. I only ever call them - why not? They operate 24 h and and are nice! Also, I don't have to go through a long series of authentication questions i.e. they have software which takes care of this.

cplush

Agreed on the website, could use a lot of work. Calling is a much better experience.

jfidler

New AmEx Plat cardholder in the US here. As I understand their website, to get 5X MR points for flight bookings: "Eligible air purchases are purchases of scheduled flights made directly with a passenger airline or through American Express Travel"

The AmexTravel site seems difficult to use, and I'm used to using Expedia. Can anyone confirm if booking with Expedia will earn 5x points? Usually what I've seen when I book a flight with Expedia is the charge appears as coming from the airline, then another $7 booking fee from Expedia. So will AmEx see this as qualifying?

I've got a bunch of C class travel to book, so 5x MR is quite appealing.

Then when it comes to hotels and earning 5x MR, it looks like I'd have to book on AmEx's site only, but based on some other responses in this thread about lost reservations, I'm not sure I'm willing to risk showing up at a hotel and my reservation being lost. Is this really that common? Never had this happen in years of booking with Expedia.