American Express Travel: Leave Home Without It!
Written: Jun 09 '03 (Updated May 16 '05)
| Ease of Ordering: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
|
|
| Selection: |
 |
|
| On-Time Delivery: |
 |
|
|
| Full Review |
Looking for travel information on the internet is quick and easy. There are on- line services that offer just about anything you could want when you decide to book a trip. Flights and lodging are the most common, but there are other on- line services too, like car rentals, cruises, activities planning, travel insurance, and other things.
Most people are aware of the well- known names in on- line travel, like Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, and others. But others are not so popular, and even experienced travelers have probably not used them. One site that fits this description is American Express On- Line Travel, a web service that is part of the American Express Company’s on- line financial site.
What Does This Site Offer?:
This web site includes most all of the minimum options that you expect to find in an on- line travel service. Among these are:
Flight Search- You can search between most any two world cities by running a quick search from the main screen, or by clicking a special link to run an advanced search, which lets you select more options, like preferred airline, desired class, etc.
Hotel Lodging- This works the same way as most other lodging sites. You enter a city, hotel chain preference (if any), and your check- in, check- out dates to begin your search. You can also enter additional search criteria like maximum price per night, sort by price, hotel name, or distance from airport, and a few others. The results page shows the hotel name, price per night, and distance from airport.
Car Rentals- To use this, you enter an airport code for pickup and drop off, dates, size of car, preferred company (Hertz, Alamo, National, etc.), and a few other optional criteria. Results can be sorted by price, company name, car type, or make and model.
Then, there are a few options that are more unique to this site, like:
Dining and Entertainment- This allows the traveler to select form a list of popular destinations and make reservations for restaurants, sporting events, plays, concerts, and other events. You can make specific searches, or just enter a general topic (like sight- seeing) and then answer a few questions about what interests you have. In some cases, the site will direct you to another place (a different web service, like Ticketmaster.com) to make a purchase. In other instances (like in the case of sight- seeing) it will show you a map with important points of interest.
Travelers Cheques- No surprise here. This is, after all, American Express so it wouldn’t be complete if the site didn’t make a point to push its signature product- traveler’s cheques. In this area, you can order cheques and have them delivered right to your front door, in domestic or foreign currency.
Other Services:
Besides flight searches, lodging, and car rentals, there are a few other handy resource tools in this site. Here is a listing of them:
1. Vacations and Last Minute Specials- This is accessible from the main page. All you do is select one of the cities from the drop down menu (don’t worry of your hometown isn’t on the list- just select the one closest to you and you will get special deals for the surrounding area) and you will see a list of special deals about to expire. You can also enter a destination and look for last- minute bargains or just search for weekend deals for the coming week.
2. Researching your vacation- This allows you to find out some facts about a desired destination, watch videos on your pc screen, and read magazine articles about a particular vacation spot.
3. Travel Tools- Here, you will find a few useful tools like maps, weather guides, currency converters, travel location finder, and a flight tracker.
4. Travel Essentials and Advice- This includes information on baggage protection, flight insurance, passports, etc.
Payment Methods:
You must create an account to make a purchase. This involves entering your name, e-mail address, logon id, password, and your home airport or airport code.
Payment can be made by using any major credit card. They accept American Express, Visa, Master Card, Diner’s Club, Discover, Eurocard, or JCB Card. Electronic ticketing is the best option to use, to keep your costs down, but if you must have a paper ticket, you will have to pay an additional $15 per ticket.
Customer Service:
If you have any questions about your purchase or the products and information available in this site, you can call a toll- free number for assistance. There is a list of frequently asked questions, but there are only two of them. I don’t believe there is a way to e-mail questions.
Final Thoughts:
American Express is a company that is synonymous with travel. Originally a travelers check service, American Express has grown to become a large financial operation, offering credit cards, brokerage advice, and other financial services.
AMEX’s travel services are a mixed bag of good and bad (mostly bad), and some of the basic functions will frustrate the average person. Take for example the flight search function. The flight search shows you the possible options by schedule, without displaying the price. To see the price, you must select the flight first, or click on the “search by price” tab at the top. This is a definite strike against the site. Most travelers prefer to see the price displayed before they make a selection, in order to help with the selection process. But here, you must select a departing and returning flight first. Then, on the next screen, your flight will be priced along with a list of other alternative itineraries and prices. These itineraries show a good amount of information, like the exact distance for each leg of the flight, the type of plane used, and a few other things, which is nice. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that the prices are not displayed on the main page of search results.
The hotel searches are just as weak. There are no pictures of the hotel, no ratings, no comments from other travelers, or anything else. All you get is a listing of amenities, policies, description of the hotel, and a few other trivial bits of data. But there are no photographs of the hotels at all, and that includes indoor and outdoor photos.
Another problem is with the slowness of the site and the failure of icons to respond. A typical flight search takes more than 30 seconds to complete and once you are presented with different flights to select, the icons don’t always respond when you click. You have to click a few times, to get the next page to open. It seems like the mouse has to be in a specific area of the icon to work. Again, this is frustrating.
Customer service with this site is poor. Your only choice is to call the toll- free number. The people on the phone are helpful, but they really need to improve this web service to include a long list of frequently asked questions (the fact that they include only two is laughable!) and an option to e-mail a question. A company the size of American Express has the financial resources to make these changes. There is no excuse for a company like this to risk its reputation by having such a limited means to contact them and get answers to simple questions via the web site.
Is there anything good about this service? Well, I can think of only two things: the Dining and Entertainment feature and the last minute specials. The Dining and Entertainment is nice because it can help you get some ideas about activities in the area of travel. It’s a good place to turn to if you’ve got some extra time on your vacation and you’re not sure what to do. It will let you know about any special events, festivals, etc. in the area. The last minute specials are nice, too, because they feature some very low, very cut- rate offers for last minute travelers. They represent about the only thing in the site that’s competitively priced.
If you decide to use this site for purchasing travel and one of your services is a flight, try to use electronic ticketing and not paper. The paper option will add another $15 to the price which will likely increase the cost to a level that’s higher than most travel web services. The prices are already higher than average, so you don’t want to cost yourself any more money than necessary.
My overall impression of this service is that it’s adequate to suit most people’s minimum travel needs, but it needs to be improved in many areas. I give it a grade of a D . When you consider that this is the travel service for American Express, one of the best- known names in finance and travel, you expect something much better. But it’s really not all that good and only the special features mentioned above separate American Express On- Line travel from a passing grade and a big fat “F”. The folks at American Express really need to work on this site!
Be Sure to Click the Links Below to Read More Reviews on Other Popular Travel Sites:
Cheapairlines.com
Travelnow.com
Cheaptravel.com
Hotel Discount.com
Bestfares.com
Hotwire.com
America’s Vacation Center
Expedia.com Hotels
Expedia.com Cruises
Travelocity.com Flights
Travelocity.com Hotels
Priceline.com Flights
Priceline.com Hotels
Vacations To Go
Vacationspot.com
Flycheap.com
LowestFare.com
Mytravelco.com
Placestostay.com
Orbitz.com
Cheaptickets.com
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Flight Purchase
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.