Agoda adds flight alerts & single checkout for trips

Agoda has introduced new tools for booking flights, hotels and trips across its travel platform. The changes cover flight notifications, hotel search and multi-product checkout.

The update adds real-time flight alerts for users who book through Agoda on iOS or Android, a new image-led hotel browsing format on iOS, AI-linked hotel photos and guest reviews, broader language support for flight-related chat queries, and a single transaction option for booking hotels, flights and activities together.

The flight alerts are designed to follow travellers from booking confirmation to arrival. The app will send updates on flight status, departure gates, terminals, check-in counters and baggage carousels, with each booking generating an average of two to three notifications.

Those updates appear inside the Agoda app, giving users a single place to check operational details linked to their booking. Depending on the stage of the journey, the app may surface information needed before departure, at the airport or after landing.

Flight updates

Air travel information often changes close to departure, particularly gate assignments, terminal details and baggage collection points. The new system is intended to reduce the need for travellers to repeatedly search separate sources for the latest airport information.

Alongside the flight tools, Agoda has changed how accommodation results appear on its iOS app. The new Gallery View presents hotel search results in an image-centred format, allowing users to scan visual details before opening an individual listing.

A separate feature uses artificial intelligence to connect specific hotel images with guest comments about the same part of a property. A user viewing a room, swimming pool or restaurant image can also see review comments related to that feature.

The aim is to reduce the time users spend filtering through large numbers of reviews to find remarks about a single facility or amenity. Instead, relevant comments appear alongside the associated image during browsing.

Ittai Chorev, Chief Product Officer at Agoda, commented on the broader intent behind the changes.

"Travel is always a little stressful, so having the right information at the right time is both useful and reduces stress. Whether that means seeing the reviews that matter to you alongside relevant images when booking a hotel, or knowing your gate number before even reaching the airport when booking a flight, these updates help travelers make better decisions at every step of their journey," said Chorev.

Hotel search

The AI-linked review feature reflects a wider effort by travel companies to organise large volumes of user-generated content in a more targeted way. Hotel listings often combine photo galleries, ratings, written comments and room descriptions, and surfacing the most relevant feedback has become a competitive issue across booking platforms.

Agoda has also expanded language support for flight-related chat queries. The service now supports five additional language options for users in mainland China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia, including Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Indonesian.

The change is focused on customer service interactions linked to flights, where requests can involve schedule changes, airport information and other time-sensitive issues. Offering local-language support may help Agoda handle a wider range of customer queries in markets where mobile travel bookings continue to grow.

Single checkout

Another part of the rollout changes how travellers book more than one part of a trip. Users can now buy hotels, flights and activities together in a single transaction rather than completing separate purchases for each product.

After purchase, the booked elements are gathered in the My Trips section on the app and website. That gives travellers a single record of their itinerary instead of requiring them to locate each booking independently.

The single-checkout model mirrors a broader push by online travel groups to increase the number of products booked within one ecosystem. By combining accommodation, air travel and in-destination activities in one purchase flow, platforms can try to keep more of the trip-planning process within their own service.

These product changes are part of Agoda's quarterly release cycle and cover several stages of travel, from researching accommodation to managing airport updates in transit. The Singapore-based company operates under Booking Holdings and says its platform offers access to more than six million hotels and holiday properties, more than 130,000 flight routes and more than 300,000 activities.