Carlson Wagonlit Travel named American Express its preferred credit card supplier in 21 countries, marking the first time the travel management company has had a preferred-card agreement on a global basis.
Mike Koetting, CWT executive vice president of global supplier management, said the agency previously had preferred relationships with different card vendors on a country basis, but not in all countries. In the U.S., CWT had relationships with a variety of cards and still has them, but did not have a traditional preferred-supplier arrangement.
CWT said it will promote and distribute three American Express products: the Business Travel Account, Corporate Card and Corporate Meeting Card.
Koetting said the deal "does not change our competitive relationship" with American Express' travel management business. "We will compete vigorously," he said.
Koetting said “a very significant percentage” of CWT clients already use AmEx as their corporate card.
"Frankly, that was one reason we selected American Express,” he said.
Koetting said clients had not pressed CWT to tap AmEx as its preferred card vendor, but one criterion in CWT’s “thorough and lengthy RFP process” centered on the ways current clients would benefit from any CWT deal, Koetting said.
CWT offers clients its proprietary Agency+Card Reporting program designed to let customers match real spending on their corporate cards with CWT transactions. It currently marries data from AmEx and any other customer cards to generate reports. With the preferred-supplier relationship, Koetting said each organization will "devote resources to the advancement and evolution of the data."
He explained that all card companies are trying to expand the e-folio data they get from hotels (a detailed breakdown of charged items) as well as improve data timeliness and consistency worldwide.
CWT singled out AmEx’s “global footprint” as one reason AmEx won the bid for CWT’s business.
The preferred-card pact is effective in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the U.K. and the U.S.