Sabre, PayPal, and Mindtrip Partner to Deliver the Industry’s First End-to-End Agentic AI Travel Experience
"The full potential of agentic AI for travel can only be realized at scale when it's connected to enterprise-grade technology capable of handling real-world complexity"
On February 12, 2026, Sabre Corporation, PayPal Holdings, and Silicon Valley startup Mindtrip announced a strategic partnership to build what they describe as the travel industry’s first end-to-end agentic AI booking experience.
This collaboration merges Mindtrip's conversational AI consumer interface, PayPal's secure payment and identity tools, and Sabre's enterprise travel infrastructure to streamline discovery, planning, booking, and management into one seamless chat-based flow. The product is scheduled to launch in Q2 2026, starting with flights, with hotels to follow in a phased rollout.
The partnership targets one of the most persistent frustrations in modern travel. The fragmented experience of jumping between search engines, booking platforms, and payment screens to complete a single trip. The three companies are betting that agentic AI can replace that process with a single, continuous conversation.
"We believe consumer behavior will continue to shift towards conversational commerce," explained Garry Wiseman, Sabre's Chief Product and Technology Officer. "The full potential of agentic AI for travel can only be realized at scale when it's connected to enterprise-grade technology capable of handling real-world complexity."
The main component of the partnership is Mindtrip’s conversational AI platform, which acts as the traveler’s always-on guide across the entire journey. Rather than navigating between tabs and apps, travelers describe their destinations, timing, budgets, and preferences in plain language.
The platform returns personalized flight and hotel options, accepts follow-up questions, refines recommendations in real time, and completes the booking, all within the same interface. Post-booking management, including itinerary changes, is also handled within the flow.
Sabre’s Mosaic platform powers the booking and servicing infrastructure, providing real-time shopping, pricing, and availability across more than 420 airlines, including 150 low-cost carriers, and over 2 million lodging options.
Sabre’s APIs are, by design, “highly constrained” to return only factual data, a deliberate safeguard against the fabrications that have undermined other AI travel tools. Mindtrip supplements this with its own knowledge base and a network of approximately 40,000 human guides for qualitative recommendations.
PayPal handles the handoff from intent to transaction. As the partnership’s preferred agentic commerce layer, PayPal brings identity verification, a trusted digital wallet, and a suite of payment options, including its Pay Later solution directly into the booking flow.
Encryption, loyalty rewards, and purchase protections on eligible transactions are built in. Once a booking is confirmed, consumers can manage spending and access competitive pricing through the PayPal app, while suppliers gain access to a proven payment conversion option.
The “Hourglass Problem”
Tom Krackeler, co-founder of Mindtrip, described the challenge as an "hourglass problem." AI tools excel at the top of the funnel, helping travelers dream about destinations and explore possibilities. However, they've historically struggled to convert that inspiration into actual bookings.
"We started Mindtrip with one clear goal, to make the end-to-end travel journey seamless," said Andy Moss, CEO and co-founder of Mindtrip. "Rather than bouncing between search tools, booking sites and payment screens, travelers will have the ability to discover, plan, book, and pay for a trip in one continuous, intuitive, trusted, conversational experience."
The solution involves what Krackeler calls "a 100-step plan," searching inventory, checking real-time availability, applying traveler preferences, and completing payment without switching between systems.
Importantly, the system employs constraints designed to prevent the fabrications and errors that have plagued other AI travel tools, relying on Sabre's factual APIs and Mindtrip's network of approximately 40,000 human guides for qualitative recommendations.
The timing of this partnership is particularly significant. Google is pursuing similar end-to-end booking flows through its own AI assistant, working with online travel agencies, airlines, and hotels to bring more of the purchase journey in-house. OpenAI and other major AI platforms are also racing to embed transactional capabilities into their interfaces.
Sabre and Mindtrip are positioning their approach as a more portable, API-driven alternative, one that could be embedded across a range of platforms and partners rather than locked into a single ecosystem.