Will Amex’s purchase of TheFork boost a Platinum Card benefit?

American Express has announced a proposed $700 million acquisition of TheFork, a restaurant reservation platform operating across 11 European countries.

On its own, that’s probably not that interesting to most people, but for holders of the Platinum Card® from American Express, there’s an angle worth considering. Could this acquisition lead to one of the Platinum Card’s benefits becoming more useful?

What TheFork is

TheFork is the dominant restaurant booking platform in Europe – it operates across the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden, and it operates in Australia as well, connecting users with more than 50,000 restaurants through its app and website.

Amex is buying TheFork from Tripadvisor and, according to the press release, plans to keep TheFork running under its existing leadership team.

Together with Resy and Tock (which Amex also owns), we’re told that the combined network would cover around 75,000 bookable venues worldwide with TheFork being responsible for two thirds of that.

Dining, as Amex never misses an opportunity to remind us, is central to what they’re trying to do with the Membership Rewards ecosystem, so this acquisition is at least consistent with what we keep being told the card-issuer’s focus is.

The Resy credit problem

The Platinum Card® from American Express comes with a $400 annual Resy credit, useable as four quarterly $100 credits. It applies to purchases at US Resy restaurants and only US Resy restaurants.

For cardholders who live in the US, who live in areas with plentiful Resy restaurants, and who dine out regularly, it’s a useful credit.

For cardholders who travel internationally, the credit’s usefulness disappears the moment they leave the country, and cardholders who don’t have ready access to Resy restaurants in their local area don’t see their chances of using that credit improved when they go abroad.

For some, this has been a source of frustration for some time, and it goes back to a decision Amex made in January 2024 (the same year the Platinum Card’s Resy credit was introduced), when they quietly shut down Resy’s operations in the UK and pulled out of other markets outside the US and Canada.

The stated reason at the time was a desire to focus on North America. The practical effect was that any ambition Resy might have had to become a genuinely global dining platform was shelved.

Why TheFork may change things

If Amex was to integrate TheFork’s European restaurant network into a combined booking platform, or allow Resy credits to be used across TheFork’s inventory, the dining credit on the Platinum Card would suddenly become significantly more valuable and significantly more useful than it currently is.

A Platinum cardholder heading to Paris, London or Rome could, in theory, use their quarterly credit at restaurants they actually want to eat at, rather than watching it go unused or feeling compelled to use it in any way they can (in the US) just so it doesn’t expire unused.

Not only would this be a great added bonus for cardholders, but it would also go a long way towards justifying the card’s $895 annual fee for people who travel primarily outside the US.

The case for this happening isn’t wildly far-fetched.

You could argue that Amex is clearly no longer solely focused on North American dining as it has just spent $700 million to acquire a European-centric dining platform which has no presence in the US, so it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that it would like to integrate TheFork into Resy/Tock (or the other way around).

Sure, it may decide to keep TheFork completely separate and, perhaps, offer is as part of a benefits package to European cardholders only, but given that TheFork has access to twice as many restaurants as Resy and Tock combined, that would seem to be doing Amex’s US cardholders a disservice.

The case against

Unfortunately, there’s also a straightforward argument to counter what I just typed, and it starts with what Amex did to Resy in 2024.

When a company shuts down a platform’s international operations to focus on North America, and then two years later spends $700 million on a separate European platform, the most likely explanation isn’t that they’ve changed their mind about building a global unified booking platform.

The argument here is that Amex sees TheFork and Resy as serving different purposes with Resy as a card benefit to entice US cardholders, and TheFork as a European business serving the same purpose but for European cardholders.

You could say that the press release is consistent with this idea.

Amex talks about TheFork continuing to operate under its existing leadership, not about integrating it with Resy.

Besides, if TheFork was to integrate with Resy and Amex was to allow Resy credits to be used across TheFork network, that would make the credits very easy to use and would reduce the amount of “breakage” that the credits would see.

That could get expensive, and expensive benefits aren’t something Amex seems to like.

A few final thoughts

This news is interesting precisely because you could argue what will happen either way. Only those working at a decision-making level at Amex have any real idea of what’s coming.

What’s clear is that Amex wants to be the dominant player in global dining, and they now have the infrastructure to make that the case in a large part of the world – Resy in North America, TheFork in Europe, and Tock doing something a little different in both regions.

Connecting all into a single benefit for Platinum cardholders would give Amex a compelling value proposition and would differentiate the card from competitors in a way that would be genuinely hard to replicate.

But Amex also has a track record of making the benefits on its US cards very US-centric and a track record of not making its more prominent benefits overly easy to use (hence the never-ending rollout of “coupons”), and a move which would see US Platinum Resy credits being made useable across 11 European countries goes against both of those traits.

It’s possible that TheFork and Resy will combined but that the credits from US cards will continue to only be valid at US locations (that could be be why we’re now seeing Resy adding “this venue currently qualifies for the Resy Credit a benefit for select American Express members” under its restaurant/bar descriptions), and that would be disappointing … but very on brand for Amex.

My best guess is that TheFork and Resy will remain operationally separate for the foreseeable future, and that we may see European cardholders being funnelled towards using TheFork (one way or another) while US cardholders will be left with what they already have.

Bottom line

The acquisition of TheFork looks like a logical move for American Express and, if they choose to connect it with Resy and extend the current Platinum Card Resy credit to dining in Europe, it would make that credit considerably more useful and valuable for a lot of cardholders.

Right now, however, there’s no indication that’s the plan, and given that Amex deliberately pulled Resy out of the UK and other markets just two years ago, and given that Amex likes to keep the benefits that come with its US cards very US-centric, it would be a little surprising (albeit very welcome) if a European platform under Amex ownership were to suddenly be included as part of a US card’s benefits package.

We can, however, dream 😁