Name: How Gen-Z Made Amex Cool
Uploaded: 2025-04-30
Duration: 8 min 30 s

American Express is winning over Gen-Z by offering curated experiences and personalized rewards that resonate with younger audiences. In 2023, Gen Z accounted for 75% of new American Express Platinum and Gold cardholders, drawn to benefits like exclusive event access and dining perks. This video explores how Amex's strategy of tapping into experiential rewards is transforming the credit card landscape and setting new standards for customer loyalty. 

How Gen-Z Made Amex Cool 

In the first quarter of 2025, Millennials and Gen Z drove over 60% of new global Amex sign-ups. 

Features

American Express built its brand on elite travel benefits and luxury perks – but now it’s shifting to win over a younger audience: Gen Z. 

American Express built its brand on elite travel benefits and luxury perks, but now it's shifting to win over a younger audience, Gen Z. That's the powerful backing of American Express. In the first quarter of 2025, Millennials and Gen Z drove over 60% of new global Amex signups fueled in part by influencer-driven buzz. Hear me out. Get the platinum AMEX card. It's metal and it goes. Things at the heart of this growth is Amex's loyalty and rewards program. So especially as everything costs more, if you can get champagne travel on a beer budget, that's a lot of what Gen Z and millennials are trying to achieve. Here's a closer look at how this 170-year-old credit card giant is evolving to stay relevant with the next generation of cardholders. For decades, American Express was the go to card for luxury travelers and the business elite, built on prestige and premium perks. My name is Tina Fey. Oh, go right in. Really, that worked. Are you aware that you can access over 120 lounges simply by showing the platinum card? But that image. and its older customer base is shifting. In 2023 alone, Gen Z and Millennials accounted for 75% of Amex's new platinum and gold card accounts. Gen Zers are actually bigger risk takers with their money. They came of age though at a different time. It was actually around the pandemic time when money was actually flowing freely. People got all that stimulus money. A lot of Gen Z's introduction to money, at least in adulthood, was more gambling on meme stocks and crypto. We've actually seen Gen Zers proving a lot more risk takers with their money, and that includes taking on debt and also taking on riskier investments. A study from TransUnion found 84% of Gen Z consumers aged 22 to 24. Had at least one credit card by the end of 2023. That's a 23% higher rate than millennials at the same age a decade ago. Millennials were famously debt averse, very slow to get credit cards, perhaps because they have hefty student loan burdens, and many grew up around the time of the financial crisis. Gen Z spends differently too. Unlike older generations who prioritized travel upgrades in airport lounges, Gen Z is putting more of their money towards experiences. and lifestyle, and Amex is leaning in. They'll get you a free global entry or TSA PreCheck membership. They have their own special lounges at certain music festivals and sporting events. You get a little bit off your media subscriptions. You get a little bit off Uber. You get a little bit off these food delivery apps, but it is sticky and it keeps people coming back for more. Amex's business model makes it uniquely positioned to build out this rewards ecosystem. Unlike many of its competitors that just run the payment networks, Amex operates in a closed loop system. That means it handles everything in-house, functioning as the issuer, the acquirer, and the network. Amex has a unique business model in that they're both a lender and a payment processor. Visa and Mastercard dominate the network side of things, but they're not lenders. They're not extending credit. Amex is playing both sides of that. That full picture view. From both shoppers and merchants gives Amex an advantage. It knows where customers are spending and can tailor company rewards to keep them coming back. There's something about getting 4x points when paying for dinner with this card that just hits different. Gen Z and millennials use their Amex cards for dining nearly twice as much as other generations, according to the company. Amex saw an opportunity and moved fast. In 2019, the company acquired Resi, a restaurant reservation platform that Cardholders early access to in-demand tables, and in 2024 it expanded its dining ecosystem by acquiring the high-end restaurant booking service Talk, as well as Rome, a mobile payments app. When you're with Amex Gold, you can stack 4 times points on restaurants around the world. Amex has really leaned into dining as one of their key experiences. They have elevated dining rewards on a bunch of their credit cards, but Also relates to the experience aspect where they can help you book a table at a fancy restaurant. They can sometimes offer chef tutorials and meet and greets, and I'm right here in New York City for the American Express Platinum Coast dining experience. Amex also taps into brand partnerships to appeal to a younger audience. Y'all already know by now that my first job every single year at Coachella is always the Amex experience. Influencer marketing. It is a big deal. They do these activations at film festivals and concerts and music festivals and things like that. It is a way to reach young people. These rewards are designed to keep younger cardholders spending. This boosts transaction volume and in turn drives up revenue. Everybody wants a freebie, right? So especially as everything costs more, if you can get champagne travel on a beer budget, that's a lot of what Gen Z and millennials are trying to achieve. If it really keeps people loyal, keeps them spending. That loyalty has been key to Amex's growth, even with hefty annual fees, nearly $700 for premium cards like the platinum. Younger cardholders are still signing up. The annual fee thing is interesting because that shows how sticky their audience is that, you know, every so often, every few years, they introduce new features on a card and they raise the annual fee, and the renewal. Percentage is apparently very, very high. The people are loyal to these cards. They like the perks they're getting. The competition for these young and affluent spenders is fierce. The rewards race is on, and competitors like Chase, Capital One, and Mastercard are catching up. It's a copycat industry, and we're seeing a lot of that. Chase and Capital One are following the Amex playbook when it comes to luxury travel cards, getting you into the airport lounge, building out their own propriety. lounges. That was something that Amex really pioneered. Take the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. It offers premium travel perks, dining rewards, and access to lounges. Once a hallmark of Amex's platinum card. They have a lot more challengers now than they used to, and in fact, Capital One's a real up and coming competitor. They're in the process of acquiring Discover. That's going to make them an even more worthy competitor. They've been building out airport lounges. They've been in. Producing premium luxury travel cards. Chase had a big shot across the bow in 2016 when they introduced that Sapphire reserve card, and that's going toe to toe with Amex Platinum. And American Express is watching for more than just competition. It's also bracing for broader economic headwinds, including the potential impact of rising tariffs. Market volatility and investor jitters over tariffs already contributed to a dip in the company's stock price. are already worried about inflation and the high cost of living. If tariffs make that more expensive, there's a fear that we could tip into recession and that this could kind of be the straw that broke the camel's back. A recession is still bad news for any sort of payments provider. If people are spending less, that pie is shrinking. In its April 2025 earnings call, Amex CEO Steve Squareri acknowledged those risks, but pointed to the company's affluent customer base as a buffer. If you look at our card base now versus our card base in 2019, it is more premium than it was at that point with higher FICOs. And the other thing that I'll say, our millennial and Gen Zs are performing significantly better both from a FICO perspective and from a delinquency perspective than the industry. That high spending, low risk consumer base may help shield the company. From some economic turbulence, the companies that would likely fare the worst in a recession are those that cater to more of a subprime audience, those who have customers with lower incomes, lower credit scores. The Amex audience is very resilient. Delinquencies across the industry have gone up. They haven't gone up as much at Amex, and that's also reflective of the customer base and could bode at least better if there is a downturn.