Americans can’t stop won’t stop spending, and that’s great news for American ExpressAXP

. In the latest quarter, the credit card titan saw spending rise 6% year-over-year (YoY) to $367B — led by a 9% surge in airline travel spending. But a bigger contribution to its $2.44B quarterly profit was the company’s easiest money: the annual fees on its cards.

• Revenue rose 11% thanks to higher net card fees, which soared 15% YoY due to new cardholders and higher annual fees on refreshed cards.
• The company also saw strong growth in new card openings, with 70% of the company’s new account acquisitions coming from cards with an annual fee.

Credit crunch: Amex CEO Steve Squeri tells Bloomberg that the company continues “to attract high-spending, high credit-quality customers,” but one downside of its report was more than $1.3B set aside to cover bad loans. That was within analysts’ expectations, but you have to hand it to spendthrift Americans… they keep spending, even with delinquencies at their highest point since 2012.