Citi launches Citi Travel in partnership with Booking.com

The new portal, known as Citi Travel with Booking.com, will launch in the autumn of 2022, replacing the existing City Thank You Travel Center.

In a statement, Booking.com says Citi’s new site will give users the ability to compare hotel, air, and car rental options on both the Citi website and mobile app. Users can pay for travel with their Citi card or its loyalty points, known as ThankYou Points, or a combination of the two.

Booking.com also says the portal will provide 24/7 customer support for ‘help along every step of the booking and travel process,’ although it is not clear if that support will be providing by Booking.com or Citi or both.

The travel industry landscape

In February 2022 Booking.com came under fire after announcing it would outsource most of its call center support services to a third-party, Majorel.

Citi also tapped the crypto trading space

The bank has partnered in June 2022 with Metaco, a crypto infrastructure based in Switzerland, for a digital asset custody platform.

Citi will explore the capability of the custody platform on tokenized securities like blockchain-based bonds and stocks. This development is aimed at integrating the Metaco infrastructure platform, Harmonize, into its infrastructure.

Harmonize helps to connect financial and non-financial organizations into the decentralised finance world to offer tools for crypto custody, tokenization, staking, and trading.