One of the biggest successes in credit card history was cemented over a giant steak.
“I fed Steve a tomahawk at the Kevin Rathbun steak house,” Bastian recalls. The conversation topic? How to “stop fighting over slices and grow the pie together,” recalls Bastian. “We came to a solution where we have one P&L, we get our percentage, and they get their percentage,” says Squeri. “And everybody’s happy.” By 2019, Squeri and Bastian achieved such comfort that they extended their partnership to the end of 2029, and the co-brand revenues have rocketed. Bastian relates that Delta collected $9 billion, more than four times the number in 2014, and though Amex doesn’t break out its revenues from the co-brand, the Delta experience suggests it’s scored a moonshot.
