Overcoming this Common Amex Travel Booking Complication

American Express Travel Booking

For years, I’ve only used American Express Travel for a single type of booking.  But that lone need is a substantial one.  I book Fine Hotels and Resorts stays while stacking the Hotel Credit benefit from the Amex Platinum, and more recently, the Business Platinum.  My wife and I routinely juggle multiple Platinum products but make a point of always using this perk.  Indeed, I think Fine Hotels and Resorts stays provide elite status a la carte at properties which don’t offer such benefits traditionally.  But, more recently, I’ve experienced a tricky angle to the booking process which I know other avid points and travel hobbyists occasionally face.  Today, I’m describing my latest such conundrum and how I and all of you can overcome it.

My Situation

My wife and I picked up a few Platinum cards, including a new Schwab Platinum, for several reasons.  One is to attain the variety of benefits in 2025, 2026, and 2027 on single annual fees.  Of course, we prioritized triggering those 2025 benefits in December, and booking future Fine Hotels and Resorts stays to consume the Hotel Credit benefit was at the top of our list.

We quickly identified our booking requirements on the Amex Travel site, with an assist from MaxFHR.  We were having our familiar experience with each.  This included seeing multiple Platinum cards in our accounts with the same last four digits at the payment screen, which can get confusing since those are the only digits which the Amex Travel site provides.  Specifically, my wife and I each had three Platinum products with the same last four digits in our respective online accounts.

This hasn’t been an issue for us before, as we’ve historically been able to ascertain the order – or maybe we were just lucky.  (It seems Amex uses a numeric ascending sorting as part of the order, in my experience, but perhaps it’s more than that.)  But our luck was up last month.  Despite our best efforts, we booked using the wrong card twice.  Interestingly, the charges went through to the wrong cards even though we used the CVV’s for the cards we intended.

We solved it, though, albeit not in the most elegant way.  I’ll next get into our late December solution, followed by what should work.

Card Clarity for American Express Travel Booking

This Worked

Rather than risking more bookings with the wrong cards, we pulled the brake.  We immediately cancelled the two reservations made with the wrong cards.  Next, I removed two of the three cards with the same last four digits from my Amex online account.  This is easily done by navigating to Account Services, clicking Card Management, then clicking Remove Card from Online Management.

Yet another Amex wrinkle is that this process only provides Amex cards’ last five digits.  Of course, two of my Platinums had the same last five!  But those are the two I removed, leaving the single card with a unique last five digits in my online account.  This is the one I wanted to next use for my next Amex Travel booking.  I then booked with that card and immediately confirmed that the pending charge was on it.

But I had one more booking to complete with another card that I had removed.  Before doing that, I similarly removed the card I had just booked with, logged out and back in to double-confirm it wasn’t in my profile, then added the next card back to my online account (navigating the same way above, but lastly clicking Add a Card to Online Management).  I booked again, and everything went as expected.

We subsequently followed the same process with my wife’s Amex online account and made FHR bookings on the proper cards without issue.

This Should Also Work

By now, some of you might be thinking how clunky (and clicky) that process was.  That’s because my preferred option which I first tried – adding the common last-4 digit cards to separate online profiles – wasn’t reliably working.  I created a separate login ID for one card, but adding more didn’t work.  Even after detaching these cards from my online profile, the Amex site advised I couldn’t add particular cards to a different one.

I didn’t have time to waste on this option; I needed to book these stays ASAP to ensure the charges posted in 2025.  So I went with the secondary method I previously described.  But I know this separate login method reliably works for many and comes in handy for a variety of Amex account management needs.

Conclusion

Admittedly, I needed a mental break after all that removing, adding, logging in, logging out, and reserving.  Longer term, I’m planning to move these cards with common last four digits to separate logins.  Hopefully spacing out these tasks will overcome the limitations I faced.

I know many request Amex to send new cards with unique ending numbers, which can be an easy fix.  I didn’t have time for that in late 2025, and for environmental reasons, I’m not a huge fan of that, anyway.  And I’m confident other methods exist for solving this tricky Amex situation – share yours in the comments!

At any rate, if this is the biggest wrinkle I routinely face with Amex, I’m fine with it.  They still remain my favorite card issuer for so many reasons.  Have you faced a similar issue with American Express Travel bookings?  How did you overcome it?