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United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on behalf of travelers
646 points670 comments31.6 average comments/hourSubmitted by herpderperator
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How do they plan on stopping me from using Claude code with the Claude in chrome plugin, or some other computer use agent? At this point it feels like I have an adversarial relationship with many merchants I use online. I wish the simple “you have a product, I have money” relationship was possible. I don’t want to take part in your giant human behavior optimization problem. You have a product and I have money why does it have to be more complicated than that? Realistically though I know that’s not happening. I will continue to access online merchants in the way I prefer and will do my best to avoid detection or blocking. At least so far Claude is happy to play along but I suspect I will need to seek out an obliterated agent in the not to distant future. (Once the corporate capture of the frontier cloud AI models is complete.)
Comment on Hacker News · 58 direct repliesTangent: it was always odd to me that "booking a [flight|hotel|concert tickets]" is the canonical example of a task that can be automated by an agent. These are tasks that are: - already streamlined (spend 2min on Google flights, seatgeek, etc...); we aren't stuck with early web UX and latency - I want to have 100% control of the outcome or would have to write a long list of preferences and rules (middle seats, layovers, etc...) to feel good about trusting automation - require making a large payment. the agent is not getting free reign to use my cc - give me some personal satisfaction and enjoyment - its delightful to look foward to a trip, concert, etc... and planning is part of the fun and anticipation imo
Comment on Hacker News · 16 direct repliesSomebody once said, that airline booking pages itself are one of the most sophisticated CAPTCHAs. No idea if this is true, but they obviously don't want their customers to easily find the best deals. I guess the best option is, to use a good reseller/travel agency that provides an API/MCP for booking and managing flights. For finding the cheapest deals agents can still be used. Just the booking itself is probably better done manually. It also eliminates the risk that the agent does something stupid. edit: they might try to block agents, but this won't be possible with browser use. they can always throttle users by IP or fingerprint. Letting an agent book a flight might be risky, because they might cancel a booking or impose a fee if they somehow detect it.
Comment on Hacker News · 7 direct repliesThe airlines are trying to reduce prices for everyone without giving specific people (atleast those who they don't deem "worthy") an edge. Here's a great, short comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50459444 It's mostly a commodity, specially for economy class where price matters. After gas and grocery, its the most vicious, cut throat business where a customer will switch from United to Delta over $5. Unlike gas and grocery they cannot compete on volume (even a 747 has a fixed capacity per leg). It sounds counterproductive but personal AI agents cause a local optima while overall increasing cost for rest of the travelers. For example, if you had an MCP connector to United and found a flight from SFO to DEN for $50, the rest of the seats have to go up in price to compensate and not just by a few cents because the nominal cost of an economy seat is likely $250, not $50. Now United isn't against offering a $50 flight to customers who they deem "worth it" - they just don't want it to be anyone who can run an MCP connector. They are just betting that the "worth it" will "make it up" in the long run vs. a customer who's just there for the $50 seat. What happens if you say "screw it, I'll code my own custom MCP connector to United.com!" Well, eventually they will try and block you and then those $50 flights will just be gone from the website.
Comment on Hacker News · 17 direct repliesAnyone here sticking up for the airlines just because you hate AI, ya'll are out of your minds. The airlines use every nasty practice they can to raise costs to you. Hidden fees, raising costs by just viewing flights and all kinds of other crap. Let them burn.
Comment on Hacker News · 2 direct repliesI have found these agentic blocks sort of inspiring and in the spirit of a free market. Amazon blocked my Muse, so I told Muse to find other vendors and prefer the shopify store for the brand. That was a pain for me to search through but AI has no problem.
Comment on Hacker News · 2 direct replies> "United is saying they don't want to add yet another, and potentially even more powerful, intermediary than they already face in terms of Google search, price-comparison metasearch sites and online travel agencies," he told CBS News. "Flight searches cost airlines money, and undoubtedly United wants to avoid the expense associated with the surge of AI bot flight searches." How much can it cost? And if it's so expensive, wouldn't intermediaries who cache results actually be cheaper?
Comment on Hacker News · 5 direct repliesI recently bought a Flight directly on United.com. I usually book business travel directly on Brex so I was appalled of how bad the checkout flow was on the United site. 5 page loads. Multiple “offers” to sift through. Donations to the environment. Upgrades for security priority, seats, classes. Credit card ads. It made me think, an agent would be nice. Too bad.
Comment on Hacker News · 1 direct replies> The carrier also said that using an AI agent to, for example, check in for a flight could violate federal regulations, including rules requiring travelers to verify in person that their luggage does not contain banned substances. That’s ridiculous. They just want to keep their price list miserable to compare so they can overcharge people.
Comment on Hacker News · 2 direct repliesTheir suit against Skiplagged should tell you everything you need to know about their attitude.
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