American Express Travel Reviews

I have been a loyal American Express Platinum cardholder for the past 10 years, and initially, the travel service was a significant benefit. When I first signed up, the customer service was exceptional, and the travel booking process was seamless. However, my recent experiences have been far from satisfactory. Lately, the wait times to speak with a customer service agent have become excessively long, often followed by even longer periods on hold. This has been incredibly frustrating, especially when urgent travel issues arise. Over the years, I've encountered several instances where tickets booked through American Express Travel never reached the airline, forcing me to purchase last-minute replacement tickets directly from the airline. This has caused unnecessary stress and financial strain.

The agents were nice. So I guess that is one plus. But they were entirely unhelpful in honoring the Royal Caribbean best price guarantee. The specifics are outlined directly on the RCCL website. However, if you do not book directly through RCCL, you have to have your agent work to get the guarantee. RCCL customer service did a great job of explaining to me why this is the case. Most cruise agents could fix this with one call. AmexTravel could not do it at all. Despite the decrease in price being visible on their own site as well as RCCL. Save yourself the frustration and book directly with the cruise line.

There’s really no benefit to using AMEX Travel. They jack up the price and I’ve never actually seen the benefits (early check-in, late check-out, resort credits, etc.). This last time, I booked something on Dec 31 for a stay in February, and Amex refused to give me the $200 hotel credits because it wasn’t in the new year. After I contacted customer service, the first time in March, they tell me “no worries, we’ll make it right and credit your account”. No credits ended up on my account, so I contacted them in May. The agent tells me they’re working on it and it’ll be done in a couple days. Just contacted them a month later and the agent tells me I won’t be getting any credits. Doesn’t show any empathy at all. Horrible customer service and prices wayyy too high. Just book directly through the hotel. Don’t fall into the benefits/credits trap.

I booked a hotel through the Fine Hotel Collection and they’re always seems to be a way that they avoid giving me the $200 credit. This time it was, "We didn’t consider your booking prepaid." I booked through the Amex portal on my phone. And did everything as I thought it should’ve been. Customer Service not very helpful. All they could offer me was a ticket to put in a case to have resolved. Let’s see if they call me back or even respond.

They’re a joke. I booked through them and I got confirmation. After I drove 3 hours the hotel didn’t have any rooms available and Amex will not do a thing. Bunch of scammers. They don’t stand with their customers

I mean to say horrible would be too kind. There is absolutely no brain utilized by the agents and they don't care to help. I spent hours trying to simply move in check-in date by 1 day for both rooms, apparently, that's a very difficult task. There is no way to call the agent back directly so you have to start over every single time. I am not sure why they charge this much money for a yearly fee and cannot provide acceptable customer service. There was a time when they were the best; that time is sadly long gone. I am going to cancel the card next year, it is too frustrating to deal with them and I don't have the time!

I used to love booking a flight or a hotel with American Express Travel. Everything can be fine and the service is good if your plans go smoothly, but if God forbid you need to cancel a trip they will do NOTHING to help you refund your money, they will be happy if you lost an open flight. First, they will have you wait on the phone for hours; never a reminder of an expiration date, nothing. I had two open tickets for a Lufthansa flight worth almost $10,000. American Express Travel never refunded me the money, I lost the tickets since the time given to use them expired. Talking afterwards to a Lufthansa representative she confirmed that American Express should refunded the money from the beginning.

Booked travel using points - lots of points so this was not a cheap trip. Travel to 3 countries which meant multiple airlines. AMEX site doesn't offer options about your ticket - just economy, business or first. Unlike when you book on the airline site, it will tell you the one you are about to purchase will screw you over and not let you have a seat until you get to the airport, AMEX just sells you the ticket and then you find out you cannot do anything about it. So, for two flights, one of 4 hours and one of 9 hours, I am stuck in a middle seat, boarding at the end so no room for my carry on. This isn't what I expect spending this many points. AMEX can do nothing and the airlines won't do anything because you didn't book through them. Basically, if you aren't going to book business or first, I wouldn't use AMEX travel. Too much risk and hassle.

Never ever ever book your tickets through Amex Travel. If any flight got cancelled, you will be screwed for sure. Their compliance team are very rude, and not customer friendly. Their compliance team.

Booked a very expensive flight on United through AMEX Travel. Flight was booked in Oct for a Jan departure. We had to cancel due to a family illness. We were given flight credits on United that expired the following October (not January when the flight was scheduled). I called to use the credits for another flight and was told if I didn't use the full amount in one booking I would lose whatever remaining amount there was. I have never had such a restriction on a booking before.

American Express Travel booked our business class tickets to Israel for a family event. Then a week before the trip they told us one leg was cancelled and there was no other flight and they were going to issue us a refund-after asking them to recheck and being told numerous times there was nothing available we reluctantly agreed to a refund and immediately looked for other tickets. When we were easily unable to find tickets I call Amex and filed a complaint-someone was supposed to call me in ‘24 hours.’ Eventually we ourselves found business class tickets online and called American Express to book it. They did and sent us a confirmation-and charged the extra cost to our card.

I have been trying to reserve a hotel room with Amex Travel and I can't believe that it is an impossible task. The website is unresponsive, to a point that it not able to get any search results. I have to use it because I have Amex platinum card but I am giving up on Amex. This is totally not worth paying $695 for this kind of treatment.

I made a hotel reservation over a month in advance. AMEX TRAVEL lured me to prepay the reservation by offering customary travel benefits only if I prepay reservation. Hotel looked good on paper but was unresponsive and had bad reviews from travelers. When I tried to cancel the reservation 29 days in advance, AMEX noted it was nonrefundable so I lost all my money. Apparently, there was fine print from hotel that they do not refund within 30 days. It was not communicated to me by AMEX. If I knew that, I would not reserve it and would not prepay it before doing further inquiries. Very disappointed in Amex Travel, they lost my trust and my business going forward.

Since Covid the agents at the Amex travel desk are often useless. I often actually hang up and call again for the inefficiency of the agent ...I am presently in a trip booked through one of those agents who at the last moment informed me she had moved me to an earlier flight creating a layover for a trip to Europe of more than 6 hours when there would have been several other airline options. I was not looking for a cheap ticket and paid over 9k for a trip to Europe from New York with a six hour layover... Disgusting Amex start getting your agents to ensure they know what they are doing

Unfortunately, I sought this site after I had the issue. I just lost $1,270 bucks with Amex Travel and I had an issue with my last trip with them that ended up costing me $200+. It's a straightforward issue. I booked early for a trip to San Diego. My girlfriend got ill and has to have surgery on the day I have to depart. So, I needed to cancel. I'm an Amex Gold member and Amex Hilton Surpass member. Yet, I couldn't cancel or receive a credit for a trip I plan to Vegas in March. They came with all sorts of excuses and when I escalated they told me she wasn't a family member.

Awful experience w/ Amex Travel Hotel Collection. I made the reservation through Amex Travel online + paid extra for flexible cancellation for a work trip. I tried canceling the reservation online but the Amex Travel website was having system issues. I called to cancel the reservation and was told I would receive a full refund. I received a bit less than half of the full amount, a $381.02 discrepancy. I just spent 1 hour + 15 minutes on the phone with Amex and told I will NOT be refunded because the cancellation was made 7 MINUTES after the deadline. Even though the cancellation would not have been late but for Amex Travel website issues. Will NEVER use AMEX Travel again.

So my entire family has been a member of American Express for as long as I can remember, so when the opportunity presented itself to me, I decided to use them (Gold Card). Let me just say, I am beyond disappointed. I booked a trip through the American Express travel website on 9/18, then quickly after realized I booked it for the wrong date. I then called the number, 9/19 and explained my situation to them. They then informed me that it was a non refundable trip, I did not see that stated on the site that I booked through, and they would need to send an email to the hotel and it would take about 24 hours to hear back and they would call me back. So I again called Friday 9/20 to check in see if they’ve heard anything and no one could give me any answers except the same thing I was told the day before “we need to contact the hotel via email”, "you should hear back by Monday," so Monday 9/23 I never received a call back.

I can't invest anymore time. AMX travel is the worst. Wasted 4 hours. Supervisors don't call as promised. They don't even call back when you are disconnected and they have your number. They used to be the best. Now they are no different than any other credit card company.

I reached out to AMEX Travel for assistance with booking hotels and a car rental. I was promised a detailed plan within 1-2 days. After 5 days of waiting with no response, I called again and spoke to a different representative who had no record of my previous request. They apologized and promised to send a plan within 2-3 days. That plan never arrived either. Frustrated, I called for the third time only to be told, once again, that there was no record of my previous requests. This is beyond unacceptable. Don’t bother trying to use AMEX Travel — it's not worth the hassle or the frustration.

Website is impossible to use. I lost over an hour of my life tonight trying to book a flight. Website is unresponsive, and it logs the user out typically before getting through the process. The one time I thought I had made it to the checkout page, it instead redirected me to the main booking page for hotels. All of the flight selections I made were gone. Ended up having to transfer my points to Delta so I can book through them instead.

I’m new to this forum and can sympathize with all of you who got screwed by Amex and other travel providers. I agree, it only pays to use Amex for their FHR program which for the most part works without problems. Here are the problems with booking air travel with them: The fares they offer you (whether by phone with an agent or on their archaic, easy to touch the wrong part of the screen while on the app (for example you try scrolling and it thinks you selected the first flight. So you have to start all over again. No back button) and pathetically slow website) are often higher than those available on the airline’s website.

I genuinely feel cheated. I’ve been in American Express member since 1990 and most of it as a platinum member. I used their platinum travel site exclusively. I always believed that using their services gave you high-quality and the chance to get upgraded if you book from the fine hotel and resort collection. It turns out if you book airfare and hotel together they just book you on Expedia and the hotel that you’re going to has no idea you’re a platinum member or that you use American Express. Not only do you get no benefits from their fine hotel and resorts collection if you are in a loyalty program with the hotel they will not honor any of your benefits because you booked via a discount website. You are just another Expedia customer with the exception of you likely paid American Express more money. I am just shocked.

I am a platinum member for over 20+ years and paying premium fees to receive the benefits of platinum cards. I missed my connecting flight because a 30 minutes delay of the airline. I was then booked the following day on a connecting flight versus a non-stop and downgraded to economy basic when I paid for Premium Economy. When called Amex Travel to get reimbursed for the downgrade and changes, they said they cannot do anything because the airline took "ownership" of the ticket and that I was my fault for letting do that. I do not even know what ownership of a ticket means and definitely was never asked to agree on that.

There is no point to using them. They don't help, they don't care and they will tell you as much. They are concerned about their own wallet and not their customers. It was dumb for me to use them. Their website is cumbersome and not current. Their customer service agents are less informed than their website. There is no value add to use them. Go to a travel agent that cares about more than their CEO's bonus.

American Express Travel scammed me. I booked with their near-worthless points to Occidental Xcaret. Me plus my two boys. Arrived. "Sorry Sir this reservation is for 2 adults: you're here alone with your two kids. You owe us $1600." "Wait - what? It was for us all from the start." "No sorry sir. You see you booked it at Amex Travel at the lowest possible rate and (after an hour on phone) you therefore didn't qualify for the promotion of book 2 adults 1 child free." "So I paid for two adults and showed up - who wouldn't?"

At first they appear great but they lie about their Lowest Price Guarantee policy and refuse to honor it. I talked to a customer service rep about a hotel I booked through Amex Travel because the rate went down after I booked. I was told it would not be a problem and to email their provided address after the stay to get the price match. After the stay, I submitted the photo of the lower rate and now I keep denied and told they refuse to address my questions. They state that they won't even honor their own lower rate that I have the photo of. Absolute scam of a service! They say they price match but they deny it when you claim it.

If you don't like yourself then book your trip with American Express Travel. To cancel a flight I had to be on a call for over 1.5 hours. To use the travel credit for my following flight I had to wait for another 2 hours. This is the worst kind of service. Agents on the other side are very friendly but waiting on the line for hours is simply not worthy. Never again!!

I had AMEX Delta travel card. Wasted half an hour trying to cancel the card after first year and ask for refund of the annual fee they charged. They made me call again just to ask for the refund to be deposited to my bank account. That account had been associated with my card since beginning and is used to make payments. They wasted half an hour of my time to verify it was me, when it should've been normal practice to just reimburse money to the bank account that has been paying them. Otherwise checks are sent by default.

I echo what others have said. American Express Travel are generally staffed with very friendly customer service agent, but they are woefully not trained for their jobs. For examples, I had some ticket credit from an airline from a cancelled flight booked with Amex. In the process of trying to use the credits to book a simple one way flight, it took me two weeks and at least 5 calls -.

There is No point paying extra to book through Amex Travel, the Amex Platinum ‘concierge’ hold music is the same as everyone else and you’ll still get no help. All it does is add another layer of headache to travel booking.