JPMorgan Chase to buy Zagat owner, The Infatuation

September 9, 2021

By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall

(Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase & Co has reached a deal to buy The Infatuation, the parent company of restaurant review brand Zagat, according to a joint statement from the bank and media company on Thursday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2009, The Infatuation is a food and dining website that reviews restaurants in major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as internationally. It bought Zagat, the restaurant review brand, from Alphabet Inc in 2018.

JPMorgan plans to offer up the website’s reviews and possibly special access to its annual food festival, EEEEEATSCON, to its customers and credit card holders, like those of its high-end Sapphire card.

“This is another step to expand the opportunities we can give our customers in dining,” JPMorgan spokesperson Ashley Dodd said.

JPMorgan’s Chase Sapphire Reserve card has been popular with affluent millennials since it launched in 2016 with offers for special access to sports and entertainment events and travel lounges, and generous spending bonuses and rewards points.

The bank has not ironed out how it will integrate The Infatuation’s content and events into its app or other tools, Dodd said.

But it could resemble the bank’s partnership with Tock, a reservation booking platform that powers the dining section of Chase’s credit card rewards website. When a customer uses rewards points to order delivery from a restaurant, Tock handles the transaction.

American Express Co had a similar partnership with Resy, a popular restaurant reservation service. Amex ultimately bought Resy in 2019.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts in New York, additional reporting by Sohini Podder in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Steve Orlofsky)

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