Two weeks after unveiling Lola, Booking Holdings has backed Vayo, with plans to invest up to $100 million depending on how it performs. Both are AI travel assistants, but they’re going about it differently:
- Lola: AI-powered travel and lifestyle planning, wrapped in a paid membership offering hotel discounts and concierge services.
- Vayo: A personal assistant that reads your inbox, finds your reservations (including ones booked with competitors), and watches for better fares, rooms, and restaurant tables. For now, it can only book on OpenTable (also Booking-owned), and everything else gets handed back to the traveler. It reminds us of TripIt, one of our favorite apps, which pulled all your trip plans into one itinerary but never figured out how to monetize it. Vayo hasn’t figured that out yet either. Private beta now, general availability expected in 2027.
What has me thinking is the price monitoring. Vayo doesn’t care whether the better rate is on Booking.com or your own website. Drop a rate by a few bucks, and you might watch a stack of reservations cancel and rebook overnight. Free cancellation was built for guests who forget to check. I’m guessing the bots won’t forget. 😉
Want to dive deeper? Skift on Vayo | Skift on Lola
