tearex

As title says, AmEx has been upgrading it's Travel website tonight (still doing it right now actually).

I was using the old website earlier today to book hotels and noticed how buggy it was. It still is a little buggy - I've been trying to book a hotel in Montreal and clicking my desired hotel brings me to a hotel in Spain. I ended up calling AmEx to book.

New site looks very pleasant though, if lacking some info in some areas currently (such as room descriptions).

EDIT: Just got my itinerary by email. The total price is what the CSR quoted me at (and in the correct currency), but the hotel is listed as the one in Spain. I'll call later to check up on that.

u2g0d

It sounds like AmEx really wants you to go to Spain!
Have you considered vacationing in Spain instead of Montreal? I hear the weather's much better

tearex

Update:

So they did actually book me to the Spain hotel. The CSR had to call up another booking website to book the hotel because it kept going over to the one in Spain.

I noticed that the website reverted to the older one this morning, but is now back to the new website. I currently can't get anywhere on the site as I keep get internal server errors.

At least the itinerary they emailed me now is correct. The format is of the old travel website though.

AirD0c

Ok, so I booked a trip via Amex travel recently. It's been a while since I've been on the site, new design/interface is nice. When booking my tickets, I selected seats and entered our FF numbers. However, in the confirmation email, seats were listed as "pending" and FF numbers were no where to be found. These are US air tickets so I pulled up the reservation on their website and found our tickets, however seats/FF#s were missing. I called up Amex travel, they pulled up my reservation, but no seats/FF were in the system. Now getting a little frustrated, I gave her seat preferences and our account numbers. She said it was all set, and that I would get a new email that would include seats/FF. Got an email, but says "pending" just like the original. What gives? Is this normal? Will my seats eventually be booked by Amex or do I need to call up US airways to do this?

Centurion

Years ago it was really travelocity web site with Amex name on it. Did they switch or build their own? What do you call that when another company is behind the site like amex did with travelocity?

mia

I would simply go to usairways.com > Manage Reservations, see if you can locate the reservation, and if their system will allow you to enter the Frqunet Flyer credentials and choose seats.

AirD0c

Doesn't it seem a little, well, misleading to have the option of seat selection in Amex travel if airlines then don't honor them? If I hadn't been vigilant about making sure we had our seats, we could have gotten worse seats as a result. Also the Amex travel CSR with whom I spoke clearly did not understand that it's not possible to reserve seats with their system (at least in this example). Overall, very sloppy.

reclusive46

No idea about the US but in the UK they actually organise a lot of the travel stuff through themselves now.

DoctorK

I looked at booking a $220 airline ticket but they wanted to add a $25 service charge. 10%? For using a website that isn't any better than the airline's website? I don't understand that service model.

tearex

It looks like a new website.

I know the old site was based on Travelocity; the fonts, colors, and date selection calendar were the same.

Whatever they switched to, it definitely has a lot more selection than Travelocity. When I started looking into hotels, the old website had a poor selection starting from $120+. The new website seems to incorporate a lot more hotels, starting around $50+.

Another difference: the new trip IDs are 8 digits. I believe the old ones are 10 or 12 digits. I currently have a 12 digit ID that has to be looked up on some other (old) webpage.

Website is still buggy. I still get internal server errors on some searches.

yul7075

Just booked via Amex Travel site and got the 3x points posted for Airfare already, I was wondering when and how long does it take to get the additional point for booking on Amex site

WantsAmex

I am looking on the AMEX site using the trip planner tool and they are giving me all these rates. Are these generally cheaper than what you'd find elsewhere? Are these "perks" that come from being a member?

jerryhung

Are you Canadian or USA?

Either way I'd say no cheaper flights from AMEX travel service or website (they're simply another Travel Agent, who may have discounts with hotels or car rentals)

e.g. I booked YYZ-SFO in 2011 via AMEX to use my $200 credit on Air Canada
AMEX's quote is EXACTLY the same as AirCanada.com

For Canadian travel you can try the website to see what you get
https://travel.americanexpress.ca/travel/arc.cfm?tab=h

WantsAmex

inn USA

reclusive46

I normally find that the UK one is about 3 or 4% cheaper than the price shown on the Airlines site + Most airlines in the UK have massive credit card surcharges, so normally works out much cheaper for me to book through Amex.