Custom Travel Solutions launches RouteStack for AI bookings

Custom Travel Solutions has launched RouteStack, a service that lets AI assistants access live travel inventory and direct users to bookings. The platform is aimed at developers building travel functions into AI tools.

RouteStack is designed to connect large language model agents such as ChatGPT and Perplexity to real-time hotel availability and pricing. Flights, car hire, holiday rentals and activities are due to be added. The service can return a pre-populated checkout page with the selected property, dates and price, allowing travellers to complete a purchase without restarting their search on a separate website.

The launch addresses a gap that has limited AI assistants in travel. While chat-based tools can suggest destinations or recommend hotels, they have generally lacked access to live inventory and current prices, forcing users to move to a booking site to complete a transaction.

Data layer

RouteStack is designed as an infrastructure layer rather than a consumer-facing booking app. It exposes Custom Travel Solutions' travel inventory to AI applications through Model Context Protocol servers, a standard intended to help AI systems connect with external data and services.

The initial live product covers hotel inventory. Custom Travel Solutions plans to extend the service to flights, car hire, holiday rentals and activities, with cruises, transfers and rail also on its roadmap.

The company is positioning the product for developers and product teams that want to add travel transactions to AI-driven applications. That places RouteStack in the market for back-end systems rather than consumer travel brands, where competition has focused more on search, recommendations and chat interfaces.

Mike Putman, Chief Executive of Custom Travel Solutions, said the company had assembled existing parts of its wider travel technology stack for use in AI-based transactions.

"This isn't about building another chatbot. We've built the commerce layer AI agents were missing. The APIs, the deep links, the checkout infrastructure - those pieces already existed inside our broader ecosystem. We've now assembled them specifically for AI. This is the moment where conversational discovery becomes transactional," Putman said.

Distribution shift

The launch comes as travel companies assess how conversational AI could alter online distribution. If users begin searching for and buying trips inside AI assistants rather than through web pages or apps, suppliers and intermediaries may need to rethink how they surface inventory, manage bookings and earn revenue.

Custom Travel Solutions argues that AI assistants could become another booking channel for hotels, airlines, online travel agencies and loyalty platforms. In that model, the commercial question shifts from whether a brand appears in AI-generated responses to whether it can support direct transactions through those systems.

Brands using the platform can retain control over rates, customer data and fulfilment. Developers embedding travel booking in AI products would also be able to monetise completed transactions rather than relying only on access to travel data.

RouteStack enters a market where AI use in search and product discovery has risen quickly, but commercial transactions still often depend on older booking systems built for websites and mobile apps. By using a protocol designed for AI agents, the service is intended to let conversational systems query travel inventory in a structured format and move users to checkout with fewer steps.

That could matter in travel, where booking journeys are often fragmented and users compare options across multiple sites before completing a purchase. A direct hand-off from an AI conversation to a populated booking page would reduce that friction, though adoption will depend on whether developers, suppliers and consumers are willing to trust AI-led booking flows.

Custom Travel Solutions has long focused on white-label booking and loyalty infrastructure for partners including banks, publishers, financial technology groups and membership organisations. RouteStack extends that business into AI-based travel commerce through what it describes as a developer-first platform.

The service is live with hotel inventory, and more travel categories are set to follow.

"The AI ecosystem is moving quickly. Developers are going to plug into this immediately. The bigger strategic shift will come when major travel brands recognise that AI is not just a marketing channel - it's a booking channel. If AI can transact, distribution economics change," Putman said.