NEW: You can now prepay Amex FHR bookings

Amex has recently added a new feature to its travel services quietly: you can now prepay your FHR bookings. You will see both options appear when attempting to make an FHR reservation:

Historically Amex doesn’t charge you at all and you just pay at hotel checkout. So what’s point of prepaying for the stay? There can be two possible reasons:

  • The payment is taken by Amex Travel, which means if you hold an Amex Gold card at the same time, paying with it earns you triple membership rewards points
  • It will also trigger any Amex Travel cashback offers your card may have

A friend of mine has just booked an FHR hotel and prepaid, and he received an email instantly confirming that the current Amex Travel £50 off £200 offer has been triggered.

One thing I’m a bit sceptical is, are such bookings still treated as direct and earn points etc with the hotel’s loyalty program? Hopefully the answer is yes, but we will find out. If you are booking an independent hotel however, it doesn’t make any difference.

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