Booking.com soft-launched its first credit card in the U.S., the Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card, which should help in its push for direct bookings.

Rather than offering points and miles that are typical in airline and hotel co-branded cards, the Genius rewards card, which is powered by Imprint, issues travel credits. They are worth $1 per credit.

The card’s perks should be able to boost Booking.com’s direct traffic numbers, which over the past four quarters were in the mid-60% range. That’s up from the low-60% range a year earlier.

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Marriott’s second-quarter results underscored a slowdown in its core U.S. and Canada markets, where revenue per available room was flat and soft business and government demand weighed on growth. The company trimmed its full-year forecast.

Overall global growth for revenue per available room (RevPAR) was only 1.5%, scraping the bottom of the guidance the company had given to investors earlier in the year. In the U.S. and Canada, it was flat.

“Continued strength in the luxury segment was offset by a decline in select service demand, largely reflecting reduced government travel and weaker business transient demand,” said CEO and president Anthony Capuano.

The main drag was a weak U.S.: part uncertainty from the Trump tariffs and part because of when Easter fell, a one-time factor.

Luxury brands like The Ritz-Carlton surged 6% year-over-year in RevPAR, while mainstream chains like Courtyard and Fairfield stumbled, noted analyst Richard Clarke in a flash report for Bernstein Research.

Some bright spots: International markets showed 5% growth in RevPAR. Net rooms growth accelerated to 4.7%, with 15,500 rooms added (not counting its CitizenM acquisition). The development pipeline grew 5.5% to record levels.

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