Why Amex Spent $700 Million on TheFork and What’s Next for Tripadvisor

American Express' pending $700 million acquisition of TheFork, Tripadvisor's dining reservations platform, could speed up one of its key goals — expanding its global network.

Amex said dining is one of the chief avenues for cardholder engagement, and TheFork is the leading restaurant reservations brand in Europe — essentially its OpenTable. TheFork does business with 50,000 restaurants in Europe in 11 countries.

Access to perks and other incentives for TheFork reservations could help Amex compete with Mastercard and Visa in Europe and may appeal to U.S. travelers.

Amex already owns Resy, a dining reservations platform that skews toward hard-to-reserve premium restaurants in the U.S. Amex hasn't detailed its plans for TheFork, but it could eventually consolidate the brands and/or their tech platforms for efficiencies. Amex is already merging Tock, which offers pre-ticketed bookings and chef events, into Resy.

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