Bloomberg Dishes the Dirt on the Amex-Costco Breakup
How the mighty have fallen.
A fascinating article in Bloomberg Business last week bared the details of how American Express lost its exclusive partnership as Costco’s credit card partner—and with it, a whopping 10% of its total business.
You could even call Amex the latest victim of the commoditization of travel. The article describes an unforgettable telephone conversation between Kenneth Chenault, the chairman and CEO of American Express, and Costco CEO Craig Jelinek, who insisted that he was going to open negotiations with other credit-card companies.
Chenault noted that Amex was not just another vendor, but rather had been Costco’s “trusted partner.”
“Jelinek interrupted, according to people who were briefed by Chenault about the call, and told him that as far as he was concerned, Amex was another vendor, just like the one that sold Costco ketchup. ‘If I can get cheaper ketchup somewhere else, I will,’ ” he said.
–Cheryl Rosen
Pic: Stu pendousmat
