Amex Forks Over $700 Million to Buy TheFork From Tripadvisor

American Express wants to acquire restaurant reservation management platform TheFork from Tripadvisor for $700 million.

Announcing the proposed deal in a Monday (June 15) news release, American Express said it was designed to build on the company’s broader dining strategy following its acquisitions of Resy and Tock.

Put together, the three platforms expand the Amex dining network to 75,000 venues, the company said, citing internal records.

“Dining is one of the most important ways people engage with our brand,” Rafa Marquez, president of international card services at American Express, said in the announcement.

“Over time, the proposed acquisition would help us enrich our differentiated Membership Model by offering Card Members more ways to discover, book and access great restaurants, while helping our partners reach more diners and grow their businesses.”

According to the release, TheFork serves more than 50,000 restaurants in 11 European countries, offering a restaurant management, booking and customer engagement platform, as well as a consumer-facing restaurant discovery and reservation app and website.

“TheFork has built a successful platform across Europe with strong relationships throughout the restaurant industry that would complement our existing capabilities,” Marquez added. “We look forward to supporting TheFork’s continued growth and building on its success as we strengthen our dining presence across Europe.”

American Express in 2024 acquired Tock, a reservation, table and event management technology provider which launched in 2014 was purchased by Squarespace in 2021.

Around the same time, it announced the acquisition of Rooam, which provides mobile payments and ordering technology for restaurants, bars, stadiums and arenas. Those deals followed the company’s acquisition of Resy in 2019.

In other dining news, PYMNTS wrote about the changing restaurant landscape in the wake of COVID and the rise of delivery apps.

While the “scale and convenience of major apps have transformed consumer expectations in ways that are durable,” that report said, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven commerce solutions could mean restaurants are entering a new era.

“In an agent ordering world, you’re going to be ordering from your TV, from your car, from your phone,” Savneet Singh, CEO of PAR Technology, said in an interview with PYMNTS, noting that those orders can link directly to the restaurant rather than passing through third-party marketplaces.

“That means the restaurant has the data, understands the customer’s preferences, and doesn’t pay a toll to another platform,” Singh added.