Amex, Worldspan Flip Funds Flow

American Express and Worldspan are cooperating on a new model in which the former pays the latter for travel segments booked, instead of the other way around as per recent industry practice, Worldspan said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated Sept. 24.

"Although the substantial majority of our electronic travel distribution revenues are derived from booking fees paid by travel suppliers," recent agreements including a deal with Amex, Worldspan said, "do not follow this traditional business model. Under our agreement with American Express, which will be implemented in the latter half of 2003, we anticipate charging a transaction fee to American Express--rather than the travel supplier--based upon travel segments booked or messages processed by us." Worldspan said Amex is its largest traditional corporate agency subscriber followed by Northwestern Travel and WorldTravel BTI. "Bookings from our top 10 traditional travel agencies accounted for approximately 11 percent of our total bookings in 2002," Worldspan added. "No one traditional travel agency accounted for more than 5 percent of our total bookings in 2002."

Officials from neither Amex nor Worldspan could immediately be reached for comment.