Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, August 6. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Booking.com has soft-launched its first credit card in the U.S., the Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card, reports Executive Editor Dennis Schaal. 

Schaal writes the rewards card should help Booking.com increase direct bookings and build its U.S. business. The card issues travel credits instead of offering points and miles, common with airline and hotel co-branded cards. 

Cardholders would receive 6% in travel credits for hotels and short-term rental stays booked via the Booking.com app, and 5% on all other travel purchased on Booking.com. 

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Next, Marriott has trimmed its full-year forecast after a sluggish second quarter, writes Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill.

The company’s overall global growth for revenue per available room was only 1.5% while it was flat in the U.S. and Canada. O’Neill notes Marriott’s main drag was a weak U.S., which was partly the result of uncertainty from the Trump tariffs and partly because of when Easter fell this year. Marriott also saw a drop in government travel. 

Marriott now projects between 1.5% and 2.5% revenue per available room growth for the full year, down from its previous forecast of up to 3.5% growth. 

Finally, Spanish authorities are preparing to delist thousands of unregistered short-term rentals, writes Contributor Ian Mount. 

Spain’s housing ministry will soon enforce a 2024 law requiring all short-term rentals to display a unique rental registration number. Properties that don’t comply will be removed from major platforms like Airbnb. The first listings will be removed from platforms in mid-August after property owners are given a 10-day grace period to appeal.  

Mount notes that many owners appear to have delayed applying for their rental registration number until the last minute, creating processing backlogs. 

Large mergers can be messy affairs, but Global Business Travel Group officials are focused on cost savings now that the merger with CWT is slated to close soon.

“We expect to deliver approximately $155 million in identified net synergies and have a proven track record of integrating large acquisitions and achieving our synergy targets,” Paul Abbott, the CEO of Amex GBT, said during the second-quarter earnings call. Those savings would be over a three-year period.

The merger of the #1 (Amex GBT) and #4 (CWT) largest global players in business travel is on track to close before the end of September now that the U.S. Department of Justice dismissed its own lawsuit against the merger.

Abbott said that “given the recent clarity on CWT,” it plans to initiate additional share repurchases in the next few months.

The CEO said he can’t comment on CWT’s financial performance but will do so in November during the next quarterly presentation.

“Our commercial success, margin expansion and improved demand environment give us confidence to raise and narrow our full-year 2025 guidance,” Abbott said.

Customer Wins

The commercial success was a reference to market share gains and $3.2 billion in new customer wins over the past year. Some $2.2 billion of those wins were of small- and medium-sized businesses, a segment that has been traditionally hard to capture.

Amex GBT’s adjusted EBITDA increased 4% in the second quarter. Revenue rose 1% to $631 million.

After macro uncertainty saw corporate travel demand dip modestly in April, transactions grew a combined 2% in May and June. “We continue to see green shoots into July that give us confidence that the demand environment has improved,” Abbott said.

Spain’s short-term rental market is bracing for major disruption as its housing ministry prepares to delist thousands of unregistered tourist apartments during the peak summer season.

Starting in mid-August, Spain’s housing ministry will begin enforcing a 2024 law that requires all short-term rentals to display a unique rental registration number (NRA in Spanish). Listings that fail to comply will be removed from major platforms like Airbnb.

“We continue to put a stop to illegal tourist apartments to guarantee the right to decent housing,” Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said in mid-July when the government and Airbnb announced an agreement to enforce the new law.

The first apartments will be removed from platforms in mid-August after they are given a 10-day grace period to appeal.

An Airbnb spokesperson told Skift on Tuesday that the company has led discussions at the European