Away.ai's Pitch: 'Booking a Trip Today Is More Tiring Than the Trip Itself'

“Booking a trip today is more tiring than the trip itself.” That’s how Amsterdam-based founders Loes Daniels and Jorik Schröder, previously of Experiencegift, frame the problem behind Away.ai, an AI-powered flight-and-hotel booking platform they launched September 8. Instead of returning exhaustive search results, Away.ai uses proprietary algorithms to read a traveler’s stated preferences, budget, and schedule and surface a small, curated set of options in a single conversation. The platform offers 2-4% credits toward future trips with no expiration dates and no membership tier required to earn them — a loyalty mechanic built directly into the booking flow rather than bolted on afterward. Away.ai isn’t a thin referral layer: it holds IATA certification and SGR (Stichting Garantiefonds Reisgelden) affiliation, giving it the regulatory standing to sell travel directly, and it launched with offices already established in Amsterdam, London, New York, Athens, and Dubai.

Away.ai is entering a category getting crowded fast — AI-native travel agents competing with OTAs on conversational, preference-driven booking instead of search-and-filter — and the harder question for any entrant is whether curation actually converts. Phocuswright Europe data reported this summer found that AI travel research is speeding up without converting into more bookings: consumers increasingly use AI chatbots to plan trips, then complete the purchase elsewhere, on familiar OTA platforms or brand sites where they already have saved payment details. The same reporting cited a Travelport-Dynata survey finding 72% of U.S. travelers find AI booking stressful and 46% have abandoned a booking over complexity — friction Away.ai’s single-conversation design is explicitly trying to remove.

For hospitality distribution teams, Away.ai is one more data point in the direct-versus-intermediary fight, but the open question industry-wide isn’t whether AI can shrink the research phase — it’s whether any AI-native booking flow, however well-designed, can out-convert the trust and stored-payment convenience that keeps travelers finishing purchases on platforms they already know.