Credit card issuers are increasingly trying to offer lifestyle and experiential perks with their cards as a way of differentiating themselves. This is why we've seen Amex acquire Resy, and why Capital One is now partnering with OpenTable. American Express has today announced a potentially useful way that they're bringing hard-to-get restaurant reservations directly to…
Continue reading: Amex Launching In-App Restaurant Reservations
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At least for me, the only benefit of using the AMEX concierge was that the AMEX brand and reputation would often compel the restaurant/business staff to go above and beyond. Of course, those days are long gone now that everyone has a Plat. In any case, I couldn’t care less about this feature.
The one time I needed them they couldn’t come through. This was three weeks in advance with a dining collection partner restaurant.
Let's hope the new app allows a reservation in the hopelessly crowded AMEX Centurion Lounges.
@Mike-Actually, not a bad idea. Couple it with a section in the lounges for those with reservations (which could vary in size, depending on pending reservations).
i prefer to use the seated app. Its the same concept as resy and opentable with a rewards system that you can get cashback to spend on uber, amazon, starbucks to name a few. Check it out and use promo code JONATHAN1166 for an additional 20 dollars when you book your first reservation. Ive been using for 2 months and booked over 10 restaurants and the experience is flawless and ive collected almost 400 in cashback
This seems like a benefit that would fit better with a Gold, with it's 4x category and all that.
Either way, I'm not terribly excited about it.
Sounds more like AmEx trying to forward their most frequent callers to a digital service than anything else.
I was very pleasantly pleased with the chase sapphire/visa concierge back in 2016. I used them to get a reservation to Kanda in Tokyo. Granted, I was making the reservation months in advance and had a week of available nights I could go, but it worked great for making a reservation for a restaurant with no public email address located 17 hours ahead of me where they barely spoke English and I barely spoke Japanese.
I doubt I would ever use this service, as I never make dinner reservations. Hower, lunch or brunch maybe.
This service is live in my AMEX app but there's certainly nowhere near 10,000 restaurants! There are only 25 cities on the list, and even in NYC, only about 25 restaurants available there, with most cities having far fewer.
AMEX is going the wrong direction. They seem to want to offer customer services yet those services are woefully under-available. Centurion Lounges? Over crowded and not all that useful.
Concierge Services? Consistently unable to meet requests. Now restaurant reservations? Not all that useful. Until AMEX provides value to compensate for the high annual fees they will continue to stumble; it's clear that top end leadership is failing in vision for the company.