Mastercard says AI travel agent booked and paid for a live flight without seeing the card number
Booked AI's travel agent found a fare through Travelport, paid with a tokenized credential held by Basis Theory, and ticketed the booking in one conversation, Mastercard said.
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Mastercard said an AI travel agent has searched for, booked, paid for and ticketed a live flight inside a single conversation, without the agent ever seeing the customer’s card number, PYMNTS reported on November 12, 2026.
Four companies took part. Booked AI provided the conversational travel platform and the AI travel agent. Travelport supplied the airline offer and handled ticketing. Mastercard provided its network and Mastercard Agent Pay, which started the payment. Basis Theory held the card credential in its PCI-compliant vault. The ticket was sold by a major airline, which stayed the merchant of record.
In the transaction, Booked’s agent found a live NDC offer from the airline through Travelport. NDC, or New Distribution Capability, is an IATA program for an XML-based data standard that lets airlines distribute offers to travel sellers across channels, according to IATA. The customer confirmed the details in the conversation. Mastercard Agent Pay then started the payment with a tokenized credential while the card number stayed in Basis Theory’s vault.
Once the payment was authorized, the booking was processed and ticketed through Travelport’s and the airline’s systems.
Mastercard said the airline stayed the merchant, with no intermediary checkout. The company said the transaction shows airlines can sell through AI agents while keeping control of how they are paid.