American Express Dips Its Toes in Web3 with Travel App: A Quiet Revolution?

American Express Dips Its Toes in Web3… Quietly

Financial services giant American Express (AXP) is taking its first steps into the world of digital, specifically the next generation of digital technologies. The company has launched a new app for luxury travel experiences that incorporates blockchain tokens and Web3 features. However, what's striking is the company's downplaying of these technical details. The marketing around the newly released AmEx Travel App focuses on convenience and simplicity. The specific feature leveraging Ethereum (ETH) is called AmEx Passport, designed to preserve memories for easy access after the trip. According to press materials, most travelers miss getting stamps in their physical passport books these days – so AmEx is offering digital stamps instead. You might barely notice the technology is there if you skim the press release. The presence of blockchain tokens can easily be missed when using the app.

Is American Express taking the right approach to new blockchain and Web3 technologies?

I think so, and here's why.

Inside the Digital Stamp

To understand what's happening inside those digital Amex Passport stamps, I had to look elsewhere. Crypto news site CoinDesk obtained further details directly from American Express. Amex Digital Labs VP Colin Marlowe explained that the stamps are technically non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain. They have no value and cannot be traded or transferred. They add keepsake details every time you use your Amex card while traveling, creating an everlasting memory collection on the public blockchain. That's all. Again, American Express isn't explicitly promoting the crypto connection. "We wanted to speak to it in a way that was natural for the travel experience itself, and so we talk about these things as stamps, and they're represented as tokens," Marlowe told CoinDesk. "We weren't trying to sell these or sort of generate any like short term revenue. The angle is to make a travel experience with Amex feel really rich, really different, and kind of set it apart."

How Amex Keeps Travelers Happy (and Pays the Bills)

I've been an American Express cardholder since 2000 (yes, I'm old), and the company always goes above and beyond to keep its traveling cardholders happy. The company makes plenty of money. It charges above-average transaction fees from retailers, which is why some shops refuse to support these cards in favor of lower-cost Visa (V) or Mastercard (MA) options. High-end cards like The Platinum Card and Blue Cash Preferred also come with hefty annual fees. However, customers can still benefit from generous American Express features like the rewards program, airport lounges, and included rental car insurance. I'm not trying to sell American Express cards here. This is just how the company tends to operate. Using American Express shouldn't feel cheap or complicated. It should be a premium, rewarding experience. The blockchain-based memory-making tools fit perfectly into this broader approach to the credit card business.

Base, ERC‑721, and the Techy Bits You Can Skip

And it's also a perfect fit for early Web3 apps. The AmEx Travel App hides its crypto nature under a warm blanket, making it easy to miss or ignore. As long as the memory-saving features work, nobody really cares where the digital passport stamps and personal notes are stored. It's a valueless ERC-721 NFT, but you shouldn't really care about that techy stuff. The trick is that the tokens really work for this purpose. Diving deeper into the technical aspects, Ethereum tokens can hold all kinds of data, making it available worldwide as long as Ethereum exists. Access and ownership are managed by Ethereum itself through the Base network. Sorry for introducing another technical feature that won't matter to most app users or Amex investors, but there is a point to this connection. Working with Base makes Amex a partner with its creator, crypto giant Coinbase Global (COIN), while speeding up the Amex app's Ethereum access. Overall, this is a professional crypto package – not bad for an early move by an old-school financial giant.

The Quiet Way to Test Web3 at Scale

I don't know about you, but I think American Express is checking all the right boxes on the Web3 checklist. The new app fits well with the card issuer's brand, provides simple data storage functions to its users, and allows you to forget how the whole thing works. I can talk endlessly about Web3 ideals like personalization, decentralized networks, and direct money flows from consumers to creators – but Amex can capture your attention without saying a word. It's demonstrating how Web3 should work, in a very simple format. Passport could evolve into a customer loyalty program later, but it's a basic memory assistant for now. Well done, American Express. Years from now, I might remember this app as the beginning of large-scale Web3 launches.