United Airlines restricts AI agents from booking flights for travelers

Most AI tools you know answer questions. An AI agent goes further. It does tasks for you: it opens a browser, fills in forms and clicks "buy."

Meta's Muse and OpenAI's dots are two examples. People use them to research products, hunt for deals and make purchases. To book a flight, an agent needs your personal details and your payment information.

In real life Imagine you tell your assistant, "Find me a cheap flight to Denver next Friday and book it." It logs in to your airline account with your password and pays with your saved card. United says that is the step it does not want to allow.

United said it is "taking steps to restrict access" in two places. One is directly inside its own digital platforms. The other is indirectly through travel agencies and aggregators, which are sites that list flights from many airlines in one place.

The target is what United calls "unauthorized, third-party personal AI agents or assistants." The airline is updating its booking and ticketing policies to reflect the new rule.

It is not a ban on you. It is a ban on a program acting as you.

United's first reason is about your private data. The airline says that sharing account logins with personal, third-party AI assistants "can expose sensitive information." It also says the tools' actions may lead to "unintended purchases, account changes, or use of MileagePlus miles."

MileagePlus is United's frequent flyer program. Miles are a kind of money, so an agent that spends them by mistake can cost you real value.

The catch: United points to cases where an agent leaked a user's information. One example in the coverage is Meta's Muse leaking a user's address online. A company would rather not be the airline in that headline.

The second reason is legal. United says an AI agent could break existing rules from the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, the two US agencies that oversee airline consumers and flight safety.

The example is check-in. A traveler has to confirm in person that their bag does not contain banned items, such as explosives. United says only a human can make that confirmation.

A program cannot honestly say "yes, I packed my own bag." That is a fair point, and it is also a convenient one for the airline.

An aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, Henry Harteveldt, told CBS News the policy suggests United wants to keep control of the booking process. His view is that United does not want to add "yet another, and potentially even more powerful, intermediary" on top of Google search, price-comparison sites and online travel agencies.

An intermediary, or middleman, is a company that sits between you and the airline. United's chief executive, Scott Kirby, said at an event on Tuesday: "To be honest, I don't want to create another middleman."

There is also a cost. Harteveldt noted that flight searches cost airlines money. A surge of AI searches would add to that bill.

• Control: the airline keeps its relationship with customers.
• Cost: fewer automated searches to pay for.
• Risk: fewer chances to be tied to an agent mishap.

No. United joins a growing list of businesses that shut agents out. Amazon blocked Meta's Muse from shopping on its site in September. Users saw a notice that "continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use." Amazon said Muse did not identify itself as an AI and that it had not agreed to take part.

Banks are drawing the same line. JPMorgan Chase confirmed it blocks outside agents that use customer credentials to act for retail customers. A read-only view of data like an account balance can still work through approved providers.

Charles Schwab's chief executive, Rick Wurster, said the firm blocks agents that try to move client money. JPMorgan's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said on an earnings call: "You don't want rogue agents, and it could be thousands of them."

Southwest took the other road. In October it launched a plugin, a small add-on, that lets ChatGPT users discover destinations and search Southwest flights. Booking still takes place on Southwest.com rather than inside ChatGPT.

So the industry is split. One airline invites the chatbot in through a front door it controls. Another locks the side door.

The fight is older than United's notice. Amazon sued the startup Perplexity in November 2025. It said Perplexity's Comet browser disguised its AI agent as a regular Chrome user to buy products without Amazon's permission.

A federal judge sided with Amazon and granted an injunction in March. A Ninth Circuit appeals panel later overturned it. The panel ruled that the user, not Perplexity, was the one technically accessing Amazon's systems. The case went back to the district court, so it is not settled.

Why it matters: the courts have not decided whether a program acting for you counts as you. Companies are writing their own rules in the meantime.

Some businesses say yes. Shopify offers compatible assistants a direct shopping connection, and the shopper still confirms the total and the payment method before anything is bought.

The AI company Sierra also published a draft standard with Meta. It would let an agent identify itself and limit its access with the permission of both the customer and the business. Amazon's complaint about Muse was partly that it did not identify itself, so an open label is the kind of fix that could ease these fights.

Not yet in large numbers. In its third-quarter earnings call, Uber said it handled 320 million trips and deliveries during the week of Halloween. AI agents were behind 500 Uber Eats orders and only four rides.

By the numbers: that is a tiny slice of a huge total. For now, blocking agents does not stop a wave. It sets the rules before one arrives.

Harteveldt said United fares stay bookable through aggregators such as Kayak, Hopper and Google Flights. He added that "consumers shouldn't find it any more difficult to find good fares on the airline." He also said that blocking the bots will not make United's fares any easier to find.

The restriction targets software logging in as you, not you shopping around.

• Booking: keep booking United flights yourself, on United's channels or a travel site. That still works.
• Passwords: do not hand your airline login or card to an AI assistant. United says doing so can lead to unintended purchases or spent miles.
• Planning: an assistant can still help you compare options and pick dates. You make the final click.
• Watch for more: other airlines may pick a side, as Southwest and United already did.