LONDON — Travelport says it has processed the “successful completion” of a live end-to-end AI-powered travel booking and payment transaction.

Travelport owns the Galileo, Worldspan and Apollo GDSs used by travel advisors.

The company says the trial run was in partnership with Booked AI, Basis Theory and Mastercard, using Travelport’s travel retailing and connectivity, Mastercard’s agentic payment capabilities, Booked AI’s conversational travel platform and Basis Theory’s payment vault to search, book, pay for and ticket a flight from a major international carrier.

According to Travelport, Booked AI’s AI travel agent sourced a live NDC offer from a major airline through Travelport TripServices. The customer confirmed the flight and fare details in the conversation platform, then Mastercard Agent Pay enabled the agent-initiated payment using a secure tokenized credential, with the underlying card credential held in Basis Theory’s PCI-compliant vault. Following payment authorization, the booking was processed and ticketed through Travelport’s and the airline’s own systems.

“Through the collaboration, an AI travel agent searched, booked, paid for and ticketed a live flight without the customer leaving the conversation, and without the agent ever seeing the underlying card number,” said Travelport. 

“As consumers increasingly engage with AI-powered commerce experiences, the collaboration demonstrated a fully integrated and secure travel booking experience in an AI agent environment.”

UNITED BLOCKING UNAUTHORIZED THIRD-PARTY AI BOOKING AGENTS

While a growing number of travel advisors no longer book air, this comment from Mennan Yelkenci, founder and CEO at Booked AI, will raise eyebrows in the retail travel trade: “Our commitment is to replicate the human travel agent experience end to end by understanding what a traveller needs and taking care of everything through to ticketing in a trusted environment.”

Travelport’s announcement comes as United Airlines says it will block unauthorized third-party AI booking agents and assistants from interacting with its digital platforms. The airline says it wants to protect customer data and maintain control over automated bookings.