American Express today announced that TQ3Navigant has signed an agreement to distribute the American Express corporate card to its U.S. customers. The deal builds on the marketing relationship Amex began in January with TQ3 Travel Solutions to distribute the card and other payment solutions to TQ3 customers in several countries and to launch a co-branded card in Germany, as the companies did a few months ago.
TQ3 Navigant, the second largest U.S. travel management services provider, will begin contacting its mostly small and midsize customers immediately and plans to market the card aggressively. "This is a logical extension of the TQ3 deal in Europe," said a TQ3 Navigant spokesman who added that "the response there has been excellent." TQ3 Navigant officials also said that their priority now is to develop tools to reconcile the card and agency data similar to those American Express plans to offer by year-end to clients that use both its agency and card services
(BTN, Aug. 2).
American Express last month decided to offer similar services to non-American Express clients for a fee that will cover the cost of scrubbing the data to make it compatible. Amex still has not decided exactly how to assess that fee.
American Express spokesperson Christine Levite said that even though the company, through its Travel Agency Partnership program, for many years has offered many small agencies incentives to market the card, this represents a significant new effort to reach midsize companies. She called TQ3 Navigant "the best and most logical partner for us to do that within the United States." Levite said the intent of the deal announced in January with TQ3 was that it would extend to America, but that changes in TQ3's organization in the United States since then made today's announcement a necessary ratification. The deal already was yielding significant results in extending Amex marketing efforts into Germany, she said: "Doing business with TQ3 represents a big leap forward for us in the agency marketing channel because of its presence in Germany, as well as its holdings elsewhere."