Travel booking, minus the tab juggling
On September 29, 2026, Reservations Group — the company formerly known as HotelPlanner — officially launched its Reservations app on the Apple App Store and Google Play, following an early access period that began in June 2026. The pitch is simple: instead of bouncing between separate sites for hotels, flights and ground transport, you describe your trip in plain language and the AI handles discovery, comparison and booking in one conversation, without redirecting you to a third-party app.
The app is built on the company's global reservation ecosystem and supports flight, hotel and transportation bookings, with more categories planned. As co-founder and co-CEO Tim Hentschel put it at launch:
"Over the last several months, we've seen firsthand how consumers want to use AI to help with their travels — not just to answer questions or provide ideas, but to actually help them get things done. Reservations brings together AI with more than two decades of HotelPlanner's travel expertise to make planning and booking a trip simpler than ever."
And as Reservations president Dylan Ratigan added: "With Reservations, we want to take the friction out of travel planning and give people one place to go from idea to reservation." Whether you are planning a family holiday, a business trip or a last-minute getaway, here is how to go from download to confirmed booking.
Step 1: Download the app and create your account
Find "Reservations" from Reservations Group in the Apple App Store or Google Play and install it. Create an account with your email — using one account for all your bookings keeps your itineraries, receipts and loyalty details in one place, and makes future trips faster because the app remembers your preferences. If you took part in the early access period that ran from June 2026, sign in with your existing credentials rather than creating a duplicate account.
Step 2: Describe your trip in plain language
Open a new conversation and simply say what you want, the way you would brief a travel agent. Include the essentials in your first message: where you are going, your dates (or date flexibility), who is travelling, and what matters most to you. For example: "I need a hotel in Chicago for two adults, October 16 to 19, near the Loop, under $250 a night, with free cancellation." The more of this you give up front, the fewer clarification rounds you will need. You can also describe open-ended trips — "a long weekend beach getaway in November, direct flights only" — and let the AI propose destinations and options.
Step 3: Refine the options it shows you
The app will identify and compare options across hotels, flights and transportation. Treat this as a dialogue, not a single search: ask follow-up questions ("which of these hotels is closest to the conference centre?"), apply filters ("only show non-stop flights arriving before noon"), and ask it to explain trade-offs ("why is this flight $120 cheaper?"). This conversational refinement is the feature a traditional booking form cannot match — use it.
Step 4: Compare the total trip cost, not just the headline price
Before committing, ask the app to summarise the full cost of the trip: fares, nightly rates, taxes and fees, baggage charges, resort fees, and ground transport. A cheap flight paired with an expensive airport transfer can easily lose to a slightly pricier flight into a better-located airport. Also confirm what is included in each rate — free cancellation, breakfast, Wi-Fi — because these vary enormously and determine the real value of the booking.
Step 5: Complete the booking inside the app
When you are happy, confirm the booking in the same conversation — the app completes the reservation without sending you to a third-party site. Enter traveller details exactly as they appear on government ID (for flights, the name must match your passport or driving licence), add payment information, and review the final summary before you confirm: dates, times, traveller names, cancellation terms and total price. Save or screenshot the confirmation numbers for each leg of the trip.
Step 6: Manage your trip from the conversation
After booking, your itinerary lives in the app. Use the same conversational interface to check details ("what time is my return flight?"), and to start changes if your plans shift. Remember that changes and cancellations are governed by the airline's, hotel's or transport provider's fare rules — the app can show you those terms before you confirm, so read them then rather than discovering them later.
Tips for getting the best results
- Lead with your constraints. Budget, dates, cancellation flexibility and must-haves ("must have a pool", "no red-eyes") should be in your first message, not discovered three rounds in.
- Book the whole trip in one thread. Keeping flights, hotel and transport in a single conversation lets the AI optimise across them — arrival times against check-in, for example — instead of treating each in isolation.
- Ask "what am I missing?" A genuinely useful prompt before confirming: ask the AI to flag anything you have not considered, such as resort fees, baggage allowances or transfer times.
- Double-check flight details yourself. AI is excellent at comparison but you are the one boarding the plane. Verify departure times, airport codes and traveller names against the airline's confirmation.
- Use it for the boring parts too. Ground transportation is the leg most travellers leave to the last minute. Booking it in the same conversation as the flight usually beats a stressed taxi rank at midnight.
Troubleshooting
The app can't find availability for my dates. Loosen one constraint at a time — widen the date range, raise the budget slightly, or expand the area. Ask the app which constraint is blocking results; it can usually tell you.
Prices changed between comparison and checkout. Travel prices move constantly, especially flights. If a fare jumps, ask the app to re-check live pricing before you confirm, and don't dawdle on genuinely good fares.
My booking confirmation never arrived. Check the email on your account (including spam) and the app's trip section. If nothing appears within a reasonable time, contact the airline or hotel directly with your details — and keep the app's confirmation screen as evidence.
I need to cancel. Cancellation terms are set by the provider, not the app. Find the rate rules shown at booking time, then request the cancellation through the app or directly with the provider, whichever is faster for that supplier.
The bottom line
The Reservations app's promise is that planning a trip should feel like describing it, not data entry. Download it, brief it like a travel agent, interrogate its suggestions, verify the totals, and confirm inside the app. The AI does the legwork of comparing options across hotels, flights and transport — your job is the judgment: the budget, the trade-offs and the final yes. That division of labour is exactly what the app was built for.
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