Mastercard said it completed a live, end-to-end AI-powered travel purchase with Travelport, Booked AI and Basis Theory, PYMNTS reported on November 12. According to Mastercard's news release, 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."
Booked's AI travel agent sourced a live New Distribution Capability (NDC) offer from a major airline, which the report does not name, via Travelport. After the customer confirmed the details in the conversation, Mastercard Agent Pay initiated payment with a tokenized credential, while the card itself sat in Basis Theory's PCI-compliant vault. The booking was then ticketed through Travelport's and the airline's own systems. Mastercard stressed that the airline "remained the merchant" and processed the payment with no intermediary checkout.
PYMNTS placed the test alongside a split in travel over outside agents. United Airlines said on November 11 that it was barring unauthorized third-party AI agents from booking its flights, and CEO Scott Kirby said, "I don't want to create another middleman." PYMNTS also reported that OpenAI's acquisition of AI travel agent startup Odessia had become public, and that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said Airbnb is building its own AI travel agent.
