American Express Co. believes it has enough visibility into the pace of economic recovery and vaccine distribution to expect its original guidance for 2020 earnings performance to occur in 2022, Chairman and CEO Steve Squeri and CFO Jeffrey Campbell said during their Jan. 26 earnings call.

In January 2020, the company set expectations for full-year earnings to reach as high as $9.25 per share, two months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzing the world economy. A year later, Squeri says the company will not focus on an EPS target for 2021.

"In reflecting on COVID's impact on the economy and our business in 2020, and where we are as we begin 2021, we look at this two-year period as a pause in the growth momentum we had been generating for the previous 10 consecutive quarters before the pandemic began," the CEO said. "As a result, we will be focused on achieving our aspiration of being back to the original EPS expectations for 2020 in 2022."

The company did provide a broad range of where EPS may fall in 2021, from $5.00 to $7.00, depending on the success of vaccine rollouts and economic recovery.

Squeri said pent-up travel demand should begin to flow through to spending by September. Consumer travel and entertainment spending should reach 80% of fourth-quarter 2019 levels in the fourth quarter of 2021.

"There is a huge pent-up demand for travel," Squeri said. "There's nobody on this call that doesn't want to travel."

The CEO does not expect international travel to pick up meaningfully over the medium term, but domestic travel in the U.S. and within Europe will increase.

"I'd be shocked if we're sitting here this time next year, and we say, geez, we really missed it on travel," he said. "As we get into the summer season — June, July, August and September — you will see a rush for people to travel, especially air travel."