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A comment on United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on behalf of travelers. Parent comment

Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be... by e63f67dd-065b on Wednesday November 11, 2026 @11:10PM (#50462985)
There are a few more modern OTAs that rebate a portion of the OTA commission back to you (see Rove, often rebating 15+%) and more that rebate a flat rate (Chase at 8%, Amex at 5%, Cap1 at 10%, etc). The "member pricing" is often 1-2% lower at most, so going through an OTA should get you around 10% off rack rate at minimum, more if commissions are particularly high (hotels pay about 20-30+%, so it's not uncommon to see 20% returns on Rove. Highest I've seen is 50%!).

OTAs can play "member" pricing games too I think so there's even better deals to be had.

So you definitely need to comparison shop, I make my agent take the pricing from all the OTAs and calculate a post-rebate price, then pick the lowest one.

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Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be... by hello5010 on Thursday November 12, 2026 @01:08AM (#50463626)
> There are a few more modern OTAs that rebate a portion of the OTA commission back to you (see Rove, often rebating 15+%) and more that rebate a flat rate (Chase at 8%, Amex at 5%, Cap1 at 10%, etc).

Amex/Chase/Cap1 portals are still not worth it.

Even after the 5-10% cash back on hotels booked on their portal, you are still overpaying by 1-3% of the “book direct with hotel” rate.

Then once you take into account a 2-3% straight cash back card, the credit card travel portals tend to overcharge you by 5-8%. This is after taking into account all the points game nonsense. Do the math yourself.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be... by bartvk on Thursday November 12, 2026 @01:26AM (#50463734)
> $100 book direct Hilton/marriott/IHG rate

This hasn't been my experience. I usually search through Booking.com and when I contacted the hotel directly, found that the direct rate is higher than the booking.com rate.

[ Parent | on HN ]