Mindtrip: AI Travel Booking Is Here, Loyalty Rewards Coming Soon

For many, the biggest headache when looking for an ideal vacation is usually the cumbersome planning process. Researching, booking, and maintaining an entire vacation often requires using dozens of different websites and tools. Additionally, if you’re planning a trip with multiple people, add on long group texts and differing opinions, and you’re bound to be on a one-way train to migraine town — not your ideal destination for your next worldly jaunt.

Mindtrip.Ai aims to solve these problems by bringing travel itinerary creation, booking, and collaboration into one succinct platform. Here’s a closer look at what it is and how it works.

What Is Mindtrip?

Mindtrip launched last year after a successful fundraising round and released its first public beta in May. Since then, the platform has gained attention from the New York Times and CNBC. I learned about the platform from the CNBC coverage of how artificial intelligence is impacting the travel industry, and as an avid traveler and planner, I immediately went to test the platform myself.

My review of Mindtrip: It fundamentally changes how travelers research, plan, organize, and book travel by making a once cumbersome and stressful process streamlined and simplified for any type of traveler — whether experienced or not. And for the points and miles nerds, the platform will soon level up by integrating the ability to see and use your airline and hotel loyalty status.

I recently sat down for an interview with Mindtrip CEO Andy Moss and CMO Michelle Denogean to learn more about the innovative product and to dive deeper into what’s on the roadmap for bringing travel booking, planning, and artificial intelligence together in one place.

Solving the Fragmented Travel Booking Process

Planning and booking travel has historically been a fragmented process. From travel agents to social media influencers to friends and family, it can feel like a dizzying mess of puzzle pieces to curate the perfect trip. Moss elaborated on the typical booking process for travel being disjointed, and, frankly, not user-friendly. Paired with an overwhelming amount of resources for ideating travelers, it can easily become overwhelming. In fact, 71% of U.S. adults who make travel arrangements say the process is at least somewhat stressful for them, according to a recent survey.

Researching could mean spending days (or even weeks) reading multiple websites and blogs or watching TikToks and Reels, determined to curate the perfect trip that includes the right mix of tourist spots paired with local flair. This takes a copious of effort and time. A Priceline study indicates 22% of U.S. adults find that creating their trip itinerary is one of the most frustrating parts of planning, taking an average of 16 hours. For Gen Z and millennials, it jumps to over 20 hours.

Once your itinerary is perfect, you have to make all the bookings, requiring multiple websites to cover flights, accommodations, activities, restaurant reservations, and more. And if you’re an organized traveler, it doesn’t end there. You then have to file all of your bookings and confirmation numbers into one place to stay organized for your big adventure, likely in a Google Sheet or Tripit (or if you’re less organized, an inbox full of confirmation emails).

Admittedly, even as an experienced traveler, my best solution to organize my trips has been Google Sheets, which is less than perfect. This clunky solution to organize travel, according to Moss, is what brought Mindtrip to life, as it aims to bring each piece of traveling into one cohesive place — regardless of whether you’re traveling solo or with others.

Hot Tip:

The Trip Within Mindtrip

Here’s how Mindtrip works.

You start with a prompt of what you’re looking to do or where you want to go, and it will do the heavy lifting for you. It builds out your day-to-day plan, including the links to book all your reservations and activities. You can share this with your travel buddies to collaborate.

As an example, I typed in “plan a 3-day weekend to Las Vegas including the best restaurants and shows.” Keep in mind, this was from my brand new profile, which doesn’t yet have a history of my preferences. Here’s the itinerary the bot built.

The tool starts by building out each day of my trip, showing airport details, hotel recommendations, and activities. Each bolded item in the text is clickable, with a full explanation and reviews about the hotel, restaurant, or experience. This is a direct booking link, eliminating the need to visit a third-party site.

I asked Moss about customizing the recommendations, and he eagerly said, “You can boss the bot.” The more you use Mindtrip, the better it becomes at curating recommendations that fit your profile, which is one way it differs from ChatGPT.

Once details are outlined, you can view the full trip (and share it with the people you’re traveling with) in a variety of simple ways.

Options include a visually appealing itinerary or calendar.

Now, let’s say you’re traveling with 3 friends, and you want to curate a trip collaboratively. In the Mindtrip platform, you can edit and suggest the trip in real-time, so each of you can add must-haves that fit your needs. This is similar to what you can do in Google Sheets, but in a more structured way (and by using far less tools to get the job done).

What’s Next for The Platform?

So, how far can this platform go? And what are the limitations for users?

When I asked Moss about trends in prompts users are submitting, he noted that it was surprising how apt users are to let AI book and manage their entire trip. “The trust is there [from users],” he said. But this, along with the features below, are just a few things on the roadmap for Mindtrip.

Here are a few other features on the way for the platform.

Sharing Travel Made Easier

Denogean elaborated on the importance of working with content creators through Mindtrip’s Creator Program. She said that over 70% of travel inspiration today comes from user-generated content on social media, and Mindtrip aims to make it even easier to duplicate travel plans. For example, let’s say you watch a 45-minute YouTube video explaining what to see and do in Washington, D.C. After the video, there isn’t any action for viewers to take, except notating the recommendations given. With the Mindtrip Creator Program, it gives creators a link to share with their followers — and they can be compensated for it.

Even if you don’t have millions of followers or subscribers, anyone can participate. Denogean used herself as an example. She and her family have been to Maui, Hawaii, multiple times, and is regularly asked for her best recommendations. Instead of sending a long text or multiple links, she can simply share her Mindtrip itinerary. Even without a large following, she can earn compensation from the platform.

Loyalty Rewards Aren’t Far Behind

The points and miles space hasn’t seen any innovation from AI or integration into holistic travel booking platforms until now.

Mindtrip doesn’t have the tools to begin using your rewards to book travel just yet, but these are on the way. Moss told me tools are rolling out “early next year” for users who redeem rewards. As a points and miles earner, he added that he recognizes the importance of capturing the points and miles audience.

He said there would be a place to add your preferred loyalty programs, elite status tiers, and credit card loyalty points you may have.

Final Thoughts

AI is quickly making its way into the travel space. United Airlines recently announced that it’s incorporating generative AI to text you about weather delays and other important info about your flight. Priceline is doing much of the same with its AI tool, Penny.

We’re still in the first inning of a long game, but tools like Mindtrip can make the entire end-to-end travel booking experience superior to what we’ve been accustomed to since the turn of the century.