Happy Friday, Extra Mile readers! In today’s issue: Amex just spent $700 million on a European restaurant reservation app … and that’s the least surprising part of its billion-dollar plan to own where you eat out. Plus, we take a look at Delta’s growing loyalty problem (basic fares are just the latest in a series of missteps), and cover a whole lot more.
🍽️ Why Amex Spent $1 Billion on Your Dinner Reservation
If you carry an *amex platinum* or the *amex gold*, you’ve got a dining credit tied to Resy, split into chunks throughout the year (Delta’s SkyMiles Platinum and Reserve cards get a smaller monthly version too).
If you’re not familiar, Resy is a restaurant reservation app, used by everything from small neighborhood spots to some of the hardest tables to book in the country.
I’ve known for a while that Amex owns Resy outright. What I hadn’t stopped to think about was why Amex was interested in buying Resy in the first place. Then, a few weeks ago, Amex bought TheFork, basically the Resy of Europe, and that got me curious about what Amex is really up to.
Turns out the answer involves more than a billion dollars and a plan that’s honestly kind of brilliant. Buckle up.
🧾 The Receipts
- Amex bought Resy in 2019 for an undisclosed price, estimated at up to $200 million.
- In 2024, it bought Tock, a Resy competitor focused on fine-dining and wine-country reservations, for $400 million. Amex is folding Tock into the Resy platform later this summer.
- And a few weeks ago, Amex agreed to pay $700 million for TheFork – a deal which hasn’t closed yet. But once it does, Amex says its combined network hits roughly 75,000 restaurants worldwide.
That’s north of a billion dollars spent to control where you eat. Dinner reservations, it turns out, are serious business.
🔄 It’s a Flywheel, Not a Perk
The Resy credit is only as good as the restaurants on your city’s list. Lots of options if you live in a large metropolitan area, and much harder to use if you don’t.
Buying Tock and TheFork helps fix that: more restaurants means more people can use the credits, more usable credit means more diners funneled to Resy-affiliated restaurants, and more foot traffic gives restaurants a reason to pay for the Resy platform … and keep accepting Amex cards.
More restaurants pay for Resy because Amex sends them customers.
It’s a beautiful self-fulfilling loop, and you’ve got to give Amex credit for how innovative the strategy is.
🤝 Why Buy When Amex Usually Just Partners?
Amex doesn’t pay for most of the credits you get on your Amex cards.
Its own CFO, Christophe Le Caillec, said as much at an investor conference: the goal is “to create value for the card member and have a big part, if not all, of the value being funded by the partner.”
Uber pays for Uber Cash. Lululemon pays for your quarterly credit on the Platinum Card, Equinox pays for the gym credit, and so on and so forth.
Restaurants can’t do that deal. There’s no CEO of Restaurants to call, just thousands of independent spots. So Amex skipped the negotiation and bought the app that already talks to all of them.
Resy has its own revenue engine underneath, too: restaurants pay it directly for the software, and Resy sells them on exactly this: “built-in demand” from Amex cardholders.
At the end of the day, these partner restaurants are quietly helping fund the credits that send customers their way.
🇪🇺 Not Just About Europe
When the latest deal closes, TheFork will bring more than 50,000 restaurants across Europe into the fold, and it’s a real bet on international spenders. Analysts covering the deal noted Amex’s cardholders abroad spend about four times the industry average, exactly the kind of customer Amex wants more of.
Will Amex eventually fold TheFork into Resy, as it’s doing with Tock? Will that mean dining credits that work whether you’re eating in Chicago or Paris? It’s probably too early to know for sure, but it’s not hard to see where this is headed.
💰 The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, this is about Amex wanting a bigger share of your dining spend to flow through its card products, and it’s a genuinely smart (and expensive) way to get it.
I’d be surprised if Resy credits don’t show up on more Amex cards in the months and years ahead.
– Nick Serati, co-founder
🤝 Deal of the Day: Nonstop to Phoenix, AZ Under $196 RT
Heat scale (out of 3): 🔥
Why we love it: Nonstop flights to Phoenix just got cheaper! Book your flights to the desert while prices are low.
Flying from two dozen U.S. cities with best availability this fall (September – November).
Sign up now to get all the details on this deal & don’t miss the next flight deal alert.
Already a member? Log in to see all your deals. (Not seeing it? Remove your airport filters to see every deal.)
– Gunnar Olson, Thrifty Traveler Premium deal analyst
🐫 Are Delta’s New ‘Basic’ Fares the Last Straw?
Delta just rolled out new “basic” fare classes for Delta One, Premium Select, and First Class – and if you’re sensing a pattern, you’re not wrong.
Book the cheapest version of a “premium” cabin now, and you’ll lose lounge access, advance seat assignment, and the flexibility you’d expect from a business class ticket. Despite what the airline says, you’re likely still paying regular business class prices, though – Delta’s just decided you don’t need everything that used to come with them.
That’d be easier to shrug off if it were an isolated move … but it isn’t.
Delta has spent the last few years quietly raising the bar for earning status, meaning you now have to spend more with the airline just to hang onto the same Medallion tier you had before. And once you get there, the perks aren’t what they used to be – complimentary upgrades to first class have gotten harder to come by, since Delta would rather sell those seats outright or offer a cheap paid upgrade instead.
At the same time, Delta capped Sky Club visits for travelers with the American Express Platinum Card® and Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, walking back what used to be unlimited entry. The backlash was loud enough that CEO Ed Bastian admitted the airline “probably went too far,” and some fixes followed – but the trajectory hasn’t really changed.
Soon, Basic Business fares will lose lounge access altogether.
Meanwhile, the seat you get still comes down to luck. Nearly half of Delta’s long-haul fleet flies business class seats designed back in the early 2010s – no closing privacy doors, low-res screens, cramped by today’s standards. Compare that to United, which just finished retrofitting its entire long-haul fleet with a single, consistent Polaris suite and is already onto the next upgrade. Delta’s newest planes are nice, but deliveries stretch into the next decade.
Add in food and beverage service getting cut on short flights, plus a rough stretch of reliability – Delta fell from first to sixth place among U.S. carriers in on-time performance, according to the DOT’s latest data – and a pattern starts to look less like coincidence and more like a strategy.
None of these changes are dramatic enough on their own to spark a boycott. That’s sort of the point. But stack them up, and Delta is charging the same – or more – while quietly giving travelers less, all while leaning on a “premium” brand reputation that’s starting to outpace the actual experience.
Delta’s basic fares aren’t the real story – they’re just the latest symptom of an airline betting that loyalty built on reputation can survive a product that keeps delivering less and less. We think that bet’s getting riskier by the month.
Delta isn’t falling apart. It’s just becoming a little less special, one cut at a time.
Read the full breakdown of Delta’s growing loyalty problem!
– Jackson Newman, senior editor
📡 On Our Radar
Welcome to On Our Radar – a weekly look at the news and trends we’re watching lately!
😢 American’s Exciting New Tokyo Route … Has a Catch
We were psyched about American Airlines’ new nonstop flight from Chicago (ORD) to Tokyo-Narita (NRT). When it was announced, it marked the sixth daily nonstop from ORD to Tokyo (HND & NRT) – a huge number of flights that we hoped would lead to more award space.
But just like that … we’re back to five. That’s because Japan Airlines decided to cancel its ORD-NRT flight, opting instead to let its partner, American, fly those customers.
What seemed like a huge win now feels like a net loss. Japan Airlines is a much better flying experience than American, so trading one for the other is not good news for travelers.
🇫🇷 Air France Doubles Flying from 4 Airports This Winter
Looking for award space to Europe this winter? I’d suggest you look hard at Houston (IAH), Dallas (DFW), Seattle (SEA), and Phoenix (PHX) using your FlyingBlue miles.
Air France doubled its frequencies from all four of those airports this winter.
Houston (IAH) will now run twice daily from November through March, with Dallas (DFW) operating 10x weekly in November and December and 13x weekly from there on out. While less frequent, Seattle (SEA) and Phoenix (PHX) were also doubled to 6x weekly each this November through March.
As we know, something has to go. And the sword fell on Chicago (ORD), which used to be 2x daily, but will now be only daily this November through March.
🚵 Moab Gets Boosted Already
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how Moab, Utah (CNY) is getting new service from Delta and United starting in October. Well, United already upped the ante.
Initially, Delta and United combined were scheduled to fly 12 flights per week to CNY. But United is now scheduled to do 12x per week all by itself. United’s fares are already on sale, while Delta lovers are still waiting.
– Gunnar Olson, flight deal analyst & travel reporter
🎙️ On the Pod: Top 10 Deals of 2026 (So Far)
✈️ We’re halfway through 2026, so we check in on Gunnar’s list of the top 10 flight deals (and top 3 hotel deals) of the year so far … and give Kyle ample opportunity to roast Gunnar’s list. That, plus more Taco Bell Cantina DEN talk!
Tune in now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
💼 Come Work With Us: We’re Hiring a Hotel Expert!
Are you a diehard traveler and bona fide “sicko” (that’s a term of endearment around here) when it comes to hotels and award travel?
Do you love nothing more than scouring for the next great hotel redemption? Want to help others do the same? Loathe the prospect of another devaluation but relish the thought of breaking that news?
We don’t just want you. We need you.
Here at TT HQ, we’re hiring again – this time for a dedicated hotel deal analyst & reporter. It’s a hybrid role, split between the two worlds of what we do here at Thrifty Traveler:
- You’ll spearhead and even expand the hotel deal alerts that make our Thrifty Traveler Premium+ service so special.
- Help us cover the news and must-knows of all things hotels on our site, social media, and in this very newsletter!
There’s tons of additional details, responsibilities, qualifications, and basics about the job on our site, but here’s a big one: We’re specifically looking for someone who can join us in our Minneapolis office.
Fit the bill? Be sure to apply by the July 19 deadline!
… and see you soon in the office?
– Kyle Potter, executive editor
✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
- 📈 American may be quietly raising the price of business and first class awards to Asia. Recent award searches show JAL and other Asia partner awards pricing well above AA’s published chart from the U.S., with no formal announcement from American. (LoyaltyLobby)
- 🦚 Bundling your Peacock subscription won’t cut it for Amex Platinum’s entertainment credit much longer. Starting Aug. 1, only standalone Peacock subscriptions purchased directly will count toward the $25 monthly credit. (Doctor of Credit)
- 🛫 Palm Beach International Airport has a new name … and eventually, a new code. The airport is now President Donald J. Trump International Airport, and its airport code has switched from PBI to DJT – though travelers won’t see the new code until Aug. 18. (The FAA via X)
- ✈️ Booking Qatar Qsuites is basically a race against the clock. The best availability tends to show up almost a full year out, and the exact booking window can make or break your shot at the best business class in the sky.
