When an AI Agent Books the Wrong Trip, Citi Knows Who Should Pay

As AI agents start booking trips on people’s behalf, one of the biggest open questions is who pays when they get it wrong. Citi has an answer. Speaking at the Skift Commerce Summit in New York on Wednesday, November 11, Abhinav Anand, Citi’s head of value cards, lending and commerce for U.S. consumer cards, said liability for a mistaken booking should sit with the company that built the AI agent, not with the hotel, the airline or the bank that issued the card used to pay.

Anand described agent liability as the biggest unresolved issue facing banks, payment networks, merchants and AI companies alike, according to Skift. Today, when a traveler disputes a charge, the card networks and issuers have long-established processes for deciding who absorbs the loss. An AI agent that misreads instructions, books the wrong dates or picks the wrong city does not fit neatly into those rules, because the traveler did authorize the agent, but not necessarily the specific purchase it made.

One option Anand raised is that AI agents wanting to transact over the Visa or Mastercard networks might be required to accept some liability as a condition of access. Skift noted that such an approach would protect hotels and airlines from a wave of disputes, but could also slow how quickly agents are able to complete transactions. The debate is unfolding alongside moves by travel companies to limit agents altogether: on the same day, United Airlines said it would block third-party AI bots from booking its flights.

For travelers already trying AI booking tools, the takeaway is that the safety net is still being built. Read the terms of any agent service to see whether it accepts responsibility for errors, and pay with a credit card that offers strong purchase and dispute protections rather than a debit card. Review every confirmation email as soon as it arrives, because catching a wrong date or destination quickly makes it far easier to cancel within a free cancellation window or a 24-hour hold period.

Sources: Skift