NEW YORK, March 6, 2026, 06:15 EST
Expedia Group, Inc. shares rose more than 12% on Thursday after The Information reported that OpenAI was scaling back plans to add direct bookings inside ChatGPT. Booking Holdings gained about 8% and Tripadvisor added 5%, while Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke called the shift “incrementally positive” for online travel agencies. 1
That matters because online travel agencies, or OTAs, are the booking sites that sit between travelers and suppliers such as hotels and airlines. OpenAI had been moving deeper into commerce: it launched Instant Checkout for some U.S. shopping queries in September 2025, then rolled out apps inside ChatGPT a month later and named Expedia and Booking.com among early partners. 2
At Mizuho, analyst Lloyd Walmsley wrote that the shift could mark “the beginning of the end” of major disruption fears for internet marketplace businesses. In plain terms, investors had been worrying that ChatGPT could stop being a planning tool and start owning the sale. 3
Expedia, which owns Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo, entered the year with solid numbers. In February, the company forecast 2026 gross bookings of $127 billion to $129 billion and revenue of $15.6 billion to $16.0 billion, and CEO Ariane Gorin said Expedia expected its “positive momentum” to continue. 4
The company was not waving an all-clear. Finance chief Scott Schenkel said first-quarter margin gains would get help from lower headcount, marketing and cloud costs, but the rest of the year could be “relatively muted,” and Expedia said it remained cautious because consumer spending had been uneven. 5
The Thursday rally left Expedia with a market value of about $26.4 billion by Friday morning, finance data showed. In a Feb. 12 filing, the company also said it would pay a quarterly cash dividend of 48 cents a share on March 26. 6
But the relief trade landed as Expedia faced another AI test in Washington. Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, asked Expedia and other travel companies on Thursday to explain whether they use surveillance pricing — using personal data such as browsing history or location to tailor prices — and Expedia replied that it does not increase prices based on user data or activity. 7
The broader travel mood is still uneasy. Earlier this week, more than 20,000 flights were canceled around major Gulf hubs as the Middle East conflict snarled routes and stranded passengers, while Brent crude held near its highest level since July 2024 on Friday. That helps explain why investors moved fast on any headline that eased one threat to travel platforms, even with other pressures still hanging over the sector. 8
