American Express is teaming up with home rental service Airbnb to let its card members pay for their home and apartment rentals more easily.
Airbnb will now accept American Express membership rewards points to pay for booking. Users will be given the option to sign into the site using their AmEx (AXP) credentials and then given the ability at checkout to pay fully or partially for their home rentals using their points.
Airbnb is also adding AmEx Checkout, the company’s recently introduced PayPal clone, as a payment option. AmEx checkout lets users login using AmEx online credentials, choose the AmEx card they want to pay with, and autofills all the billing information.
Similar to the way Airbnb customers can verify their identity via LinkedIn or Facebook, card members that set up an Airbnb account with their AmEx login will have an “American Express Card Member” badge on their Airbnb profiles.
The home rentals company has no similar partnership with rival credit card giants MasterCard (MA) or Visa (V).
This isn’t the first partnership for AmEx with an on-demand technology company. The financial giant partnered with ride sharing giant Uber to let passengers to pay using their AmEx points.
Leslie Berland, AmEx’s executive vice president of advertising, marketing and digital partnerships, said that the company saw the growing number of its card members paying for Airbnb rentals using their cards. Berland explained that the partnership made sense because of AmEx’s focus on offering travel benefits for things like flights and hotels.
According to Berland, it’s a big vote of confidence for the fast growing hospitality site, as AmEx hasn’t done a similar deal with any hotel chains, including Hilton Hotels and Starwood (although you can exchange your points for Starwood points).
Berland adds that AmEx will be looking to add similar partnerships with other websites in the future.
For more about Airbnb, watch this Coins2Day video:
