A restructuring charge of approximately $370 to $440 million pre-tax (approximately $240 to $290 million after-tax) in the fourth quarter. The charge is primarily associated with severance and other costs related to the elimination of approximately 7,000 jobs or about 10 percent of the Company's worldwide workforce. The reductions will occur across business units, markets and staff groups primarily focusing on management and other positions that do not interact directly with customers. The Company is also suspending management level salary increases for 2009 and instituting a hiring freeze for open positions. The total benefit from these staffing and compensation-related decisions is expected to be approximately $700 million in 2009.

Reducing operating costs by cutting expenses for consulting and other professional services, travel and entertainment, and general overhead. These steps are expected to realize benefits of approximately $125 million next year.

Scaling-back investment spending on technology, marketing and business development, and streamlining costs associated with some rewards programs. The anticipated cost benefit is approximately $1.0 billion in 2009. Despite these cutbacks, the Company plans to continue to make substantial investments in selective growth opportunities during the next year.

The aggregate benefit of $1.8 billion detailed above represents reductions from previously anticipated 2009 spending levels. In addition, the Company plans to move forward with pricing initiatives designed to generate significant additional revenue next year.

“We've been engaged for the past few months in an intensive, companywide review of priorities and staffing levels,” said Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express. “The reengineering program we announced today will help us to manage through one of the most challenging economic environments we've seen in many decades. It will also put us in position to ramp-up investment spending as economic conditions improve so that we can take advantage of the substantial opportunities that will be available to us over the medium to long term.”

American Express first announced in July 2008 its plans to complete a companywide reengineering initiative in the fourth quarter 2008.

American Express Company is a leading global payments and travel company founded in 1850. For more information, visit www.americanexpress.com.

This release includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements, which address the Company's expected business and financial performance, among other matters, contain words such as “expect,” “plan,” “will” and similar expressions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: the success, timeliness and financial impact (including costs, cost savings and other benefits including increased revenues), and beneficial effect on the Company's operating expense to revenue ratio, both in the short-term (including during 2009) and over time, of reengineering initiatives being implemented or considered by the Company, including cost management, structural and strategic measures such as vendor, process, facilities and operations consolidation, outsourcing (including, among others, technologies operations), relocating certain functions to lower-cost overseas locations, moving internal and external functions to the internet to save costs, and planned staff reductions relating to certain of such reengineering actions; the Company's ability to reinvest the benefits arising from such reengineering actions in its businesses; the Company's ability to effectively implement changes in the pricing of certain of its products and services; the actual amount to be spent by the Company on marketing, promotion, rewards and Cardmember services based on management's assessment of competitive opportunities and other factors affecting its judgment; the ability to control and manage operating, infrastructure, advertising and promotion expenses as business expands or changes, including the ability to accurately estimate the provision for the cost of the Membership Rewards program; and the Company's ability to invest in technology advances across all areas of its business to stay on the leading edge of technologies applicable to the payments industry. A further description of these and other risks and uncertainties can be found in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and its other reports filed with the SEC.