In 2019, American Express acquired Resy, a digital restaurant reservation booking and management platform. Now the credit card issuer has announced that it’s acquiring Tock, a competitor to Resy.
Amex acquiring Tock for $400 million
Amex will be acquiring Tock from Squarespace for $400 million. For those not familiar, Tock is a reservation, table, and event management technology provider.
American Express describes this as building on the company’s previous investments in dining, travel, and entertainment, and expanding the brand’s suite of digital tools for restaurants and merchants to better serve their customers, the number of restaurants offered through Amex channels, and the ways that card members can access these experiences.
Here’s how Howard Grosfield, President of U.S. Consumer Services for American Express, describes this acquisition:
“Restaurants are one of our largest Card Member spending categories within Travel and Entertainment, with $100 billion in volume in 2023. We’ve been offering unique dining benefits, exclusive access, and special experiences to our Card Members for years through Resy and Global Dining Access by Resy. Now, we can connect even more premium customers with the most exciting restaurants, while providing merchants and restaurants more technology to help their businesses thrive. We will be able to offer restaurants the tools to deliver more personalized hospitality, facilitate pre-paid experiences like tasting menus, and provide more convenient ways for customers to pay the bill.”
Meanwhile here’s how Pablo Rivero, Vice President of American Express Global Dining, describes the strategy:
“From our acquisition of Resy in July 2019 through year-end 2023, we’ve increased the number of engaged diners by 3x, increased the number of restaurants by 5.4x and driven solid growth in diners seated. Restaurants value access to our premium, high-spending customer base and to Resy’s technology to help run their businesses. These acquisitions will enhance our dining platform and help us continue to support the industry’s growth.”
What does Amex’s dining play mean for card members?
The credit card business is both competitive and high margin, so card issuers are pretty aggressive in terms of their investment in perks. We also see that card issuers are increasingly focused on “lifestyle” perks, beyond just traditional travel benefits.
Just about all the major card issuers have had partnerships with dining platforms over the years. By acquiring both Resy and Tock, Amex certainly has an advantage on the dining front, since those are two major platforms.
What I’m more skeptical of, though, is the extent to which these acquisitions change card member behavior. For example, Amex acquired Resy almost five years ago. I have a bunch of Amex cards, and I also use Resy all the time for reservations. But I’m not actually sure what Amex’s ownership of Resy means for me?
Admittedly I could do a bit more research, but the point is that if I’m not sure what the advantage of this is, then odds are that the average Amex customer isn’t either.
I know card issuers sometimes try to have special dining experience events for cardmembers. Personally that doesn’t really appeal to me. I’d love to have access to more reservations or some other perks, but I haven’t found any material benefits with any of these dining and credit card collaborations.
But perhaps I’m in the minority on this, and just need to do my research, so I’d love to hear from OMAAT readers on this. Probably part of the issue is that dining “events” with celebrity chefs have no appeal to me. I also like to eat at 5PM, and would rather go to a restaurant with quality food over a place that is a scene (which, living in Miami, those are typically polar opposites). So perhaps I’m the problem, and not any of these partnerships. 😉
Bottom line
Amex is acquiring Tock for $400 million, following the company’s 2019 purchase of Resy. I can appreciate the value of giving card members exclusive access to dining, so I’m curious to see what the long term play is here. Amex will be in a powerful position when it comes to control over dining platforms.
What do you make of Amex acquiring Tock, and the card issuer’s general dining investments?
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