UK travel rewards programme Avios and American Express have formed a new partnership enabling members to collect points when exchanging foreign currency at all Express Exchange airport bureaux in the UK and Moneycorp London Gatwick airport locations. Avios members can make their money work harder for them, earning one Avios for every £1 exchanged when currency is ordered online or at the airport.

American Express has announced Charles Petruccelli, president, global business travel will be retiring on December 31st after 36 years of service with the company. Petruccelli led the Global Business Travel division for ten years through momentous change and turmoil for the industry that included the events of September 11th, 2001; the SARS outbreak; the shift to online and zero airline commissions; the emergence of airline and hotel alliances; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the global financial crisis and economic recession.

American Express today announced a new Hotel Folio alliance with La Quinta Inns & Suites, one of the largest operators of limited-service hotels in the US with over 80,000 rooms and more than 800 hotels across the US, Canada, and Mexico.

New research released today from American Express and Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ loyalty programme – Starwood Preferred Guest® (SPG) – has revealed the trend for ‘bleisure travel’

UK holidaymakers could be sitting on a pot of cash of over £800 million* in forgotten foreign currency, the equivalent of over 350,000 return flights to New York**  or 1.5 million family holidays to Spain.  According to a study released today, each UK traveller****  has on average the equivalent of more than £40 in unspent holiday money left over from previous trips.

American Express Business Travel today unveiled virtual meetings eXpert, a unique telepresence solution that will act as a central hub and aggregator of both public telepresence facilities and the private network a company may already have in place.