# The Banks That Don't Want to Become Travel Companies

> While Chase, Amex and Capital One built their own travel businesses, other major U.S. banks chose to focus on the card rather than the trip.

- **Section:** technologia
- **Published:** 2026-09-17
- **Publisher:** Voyage (https://thevoyage.gr)
- **Type:** our own summary of someone else’s reporting
- **Source:** Skift — https://skift.com/2026/09/16/the-banks-that-dont-want-to-become-travel-companies/

The premium travel-card competition has divided American banking into two camps: a few companies want to own the entire trip, while most banks prefer to own the customer who pays for it.

According to the article, Citi's cards handled $538 billion in purchases in 2025, Bank of America's handled $378 billion, and Wells Fargo's handled $186 billion. Combined, the three banks processed $1.1 trillion in card spending in a single year.

None of them, however, has built a travel company of its own. By contrast, Chase Travel booked $13 billion last year, with JPMorgan describing it as the third-largest consumer leisure travel seller in America. Capital One is bringing its travel technology in-house, while Amex has operated a travel agency since 1915.

According to the article, the rest of American banking stopped investing in this area earlier, not out of disinterest in travel, but because they decided a different part of the customer relationship was worth more.

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This summary was written by Voyage based on reporting by Skift. The full article is at https://skift.com/2026/09/16/the-banks-that-dont-want-to-become-travel-companies/. Canonical URL of this page: https://thevoyage.gr/en/a/the-banks-that-don-t-want-to-become-travel-companies