JPMC purchases cxLoyalty
 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/28/jpmo...on-travel.html

Speculate away, but changes seem to likely be in store for UR travel. Figure this is a longer term strategic focus for JPMC (encroach on Amex's travel dominance) meeting short term opportunity (cx cheap due to Covid) - will be interesting to see what consumer facing changes come from this.

It will be interesting to see how long Citi, CapitalOne and other competing card issuers continue to use cxLoyalty.

cxLoyalty also handles Mastercard's reward program as well.

I would guess they are tired of paying Expedia's commissions as are most businesses. While trying to become more of a TA company themselves. The 5x points offer on CFF and CFU already started that marketing.

So they now have a better handle on the cost of portal redemptions, which should mean they can go ahead and update CSR and CSP, right? That seems overdue, but could turn out to be well-timed for a post-Covid marketing push in the spring.

I think this is only a small part of the decision. cxLoyalty typically fulfilled hotel redemptions through Expedia, and hotel is a category where agency margins are high. I think the timing of the transaction is easy to understand, because agency valuations will be low and further consolidation is likely.