United Airlines today revised its Contract of Carriage to put AI agents on the list of prohibited ticketing practices, next to hidden-city and throwaway ticketing. The new Rule 6.J.6 bars "the use of AI Agents to make, modify or service a Ticket, and/or to purchase any service or product." A companion change to Rule 5.H adds "reservations made, modified or serviced by AI Agents" to the bookings the airline says it will cancel without notice, and a new definition in Rule 1 states that the rule holds "whether or not Passenger or another individual supervises or approves" what the software does.

The contract, headed "revised November 11, 2026," governs the carriage of every passenger and bag on United Airlines, Inc. and on carriers flying as United Express. By its own preamble, a passenger agrees to be bound by it simply "by purchasing a ticket or accepting transportation." The change was reported today by View from the Wing, the travel blog written by Gary Leff, and by InsideFlyer, which credited View from the Wing as the original source.

In Short

United now forbids using an AI assistant to book, change or manage its tickets, or to buy seats, upgrades or other extras, and it says it can cancel any reservation an AI agent made, even if you watched and approved every step. The rule reaches assistants inside search engines, messaging apps and browsers, and AI tools offered through travel agencies, which covers the kind of booking features Google, OpenAI and Meta have been building. An AI can still look up and show United flights and prices, according to two travel blogs that reported the change, but the purchase itself has to be completed by the customer.

One sentence among the prohibited practices

Rule 6.J of the contract, headed "Prohibited Practices," is where United lists the ways passengers try to get around its fare system. Items one to four cover hidden-city or "Point Beyond" ticketing, throwaway ticketing, back-to-back ticketing and the circumvention of stayover and fare category rules. Item five deals with obtaining "a ticket, service, product, or refund through fraudulent or deceptive means," including payment fraud and chargebacks for services already rendered. Item seven is a catch-all for "any practice that United believes, in its sole discretion, is exploitative, abusive or that manipulates/bypasses/overrides United's fare and ticket rules."

AI agents now occupy item six. According to View from the Wing, the November 11 revision is what added them to the list. The clause is a single sentence, and its verbs do most of the work. "Make, modify or service" reaches past the original booking to changes made afterwards and to the servicing of a Ticket, a term the contract does not define. "Purchase any service or product" extends the prohibition beyond the fare. The new definition lists "flights, seats, upgrades, ancillary products and partner products" among the things an agent might act on, so a paid seat assignment or an upgrade bought by an assistant falls inside the same sentence as the ticket itself.

Placement has consequences. Rule 6.K, the remedies clause that follows the list, applies "where a Ticket is booked, held, purchased and/or used in violation of the law, these rules or any fare rule." Its parenthetical examples name only the four older practices - hidden-city, point-beyond, throwaway and back-to-back ticketing - and not AI agents. Its general wording, though, covers any breach of "these rules," and the eight remedies it lists are not minor. They include invalidating tickets, cancelling the rest of an itinerary, confiscating unused flight coupons, permanently banning a passenger or refusing to board them, charging "the full value of a Ticket" measured against the lowest applicable fare "including after the transportation or service have been provided," deleting miles, revoking Elite status, terminating membership of MileagePlus, United's loyalty programme, and taking legal action. The early coverage of the AI rule concentrated on cancellation.

How United defines an AI agent

The definition, new in Rule 1, is longer than the rule it supports. It reads in full:

"AI Agent means any software or service, including but not limited to an AI assistant, AI agent or AI-enabled browser that takes autonomous or semi-autonomous action, whether or not Passenger or another individual supervises or approves its actions, to discover, search for, book, purchase, ticket, service or manage any product or service offered by or through United, including flights, seats, upgrades, ancillary products and partner products, on behalf of or at the instruction of Passenger or other individual."

Four features stand out. The first is "semi-autonomous." Much of what is marketed as agentic AI in consumer products proposes an action and waits for a tap before completing it. Including semi-autonomous software brings those tools inside the definition.

The second is the supervision clause. The usual answer to concerns about software spending money is to keep a human in the loop, with the customer confirming the purchase before it goes through. United's text removes that answer. A customer who watches every screen and approves the final payment is still using an AI Agent, as the contract defines it. View from the Wing put it plainly: human supervision or approval does not get around the rule.

The third is the list of verbs. The definition covers software that acts "to discover, search for, book, purchase, ticket, service or manage." Rule 6.J.6, however, prohibits only making, modifying or servicing a Ticket and purchasing a product. Discovering and searching appear in the definition but not in the prohibition. That gap is the textual basis for what remains allowed, discussed below.

The fourth is the phrase "on behalf of or at the instruction of Passenger or other individual." The rule is not limited to travellers booking for themselves. An assistant used by someone booking for a colleague or relative is covered in the same way.

Three named categories

The definition closes with three examples, introduced as "including but not limited to": "(i) AI assistants built into social media, messaging, search or other consumer platforms; (ii) AI-enabled browsers and standalone AI agents; and (iii) any third-party AI assistant that accesses United through a tool, application or connection provided by a travel agency or other intermediary."

The contract names no product. Each category, however, matches a type of product PPC Land has covered this year. Meta's Muse, an assistant inside a consumer platform, was the agent Amazon said it had cut off from buying on Amazon.com on September 20, 2026. In search, Google's AI Mode began completing hotel bookings with 10 US partners in August 2026. Among browsers, Google added auto browse to Chrome in July, a feature that lets AI agents book travel and fill forms for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US. Products of this kind are often described as computer use agents, because they operate a website through its visible interface rather than through an integration.

The third category matters most for distribution. Elsewhere, the contract uses the word "agent" in an older sense: Rule 4.A says a reservation is valid when space is confirmed "by UA or an authorized agent of UA," a reference to appointed sellers such as travel agencies. Item (iii) makes clear that an authorised seller does not shelter an AI assistant that reaches United through that seller's tools. An online travel agency can sell United tickets. An AI assistant connected through the agency's app cannot buy them, under the contract's terms.

Cancellation without notice

Rule 5.H, which covers improper reservations, begins: "In addition to exercising any of its remedies in Rule 6 K) below, UA reserves the right to cancel bookings and/or reservations which it deems fraudulent, abusive, illogical, fictitious, which are booked and/or reserved with no intention of flying, or for which the passenger makes a misrepresentation without notice to the passenger or the individual making the booking."

The rule then lists "the types of improper reservations that UA will cancel without notice." Most of the other entries concern familiar fare and inventory abuses: reservations made to hold seats for lower fares or award inventory, duplicate bookings for the same passenger on or about the same date, bookings made on flights likely to be delayed "with the intention of making a claim," suspected payment fraud and connections that depart before the inbound flight lands. The final entry is the one tied to AI: "reservations made, modified or serviced by AI Agents." According to InsideFlyer, Rule 5.H gives the airline authority to cancel reservations handled by such agents, separately from the ticketing prohibition.

Two neighbouring clauses shape what cancellation means. Rule 5.F states that "UA is not liable for any consequential, compensatory, or other damages when it cancels reservations (whether or not confirmed) of any Passenger in accordance with this Rule." And because 5.H refers to reservations "made" by AI agents, rather than tickets purchased, a hold placed by an assistant without payment falls within it too.

Timing is set elsewhere. Rule 3.E says transportation is subject to the Contract of Carriage "in effect on the date on which the Ticket is issued," and Rule 3.K adds that no change "shall apply to Tickets issued prior to the effective date of such change." Read with the revision date, that places tickets issued before November 11 under the earlier text, though the contract does not state a separate effective date for the new provisions.

What an agent can still do

On the reading of both blogs, quite a lot short of the transaction. According to InsideFlyer, the policy does not prohibit automated flight searches: agents can show United fares and availability, while the customer completes checkout independently. View from the Wing reported the same distinction, saying United is not banning search, only the completion of the transaction, and cited the Wall Street Journal as saying agents can still present United flights and prices. AI research followed by the customer making the purchase on their own, View from the Wing wrote, does not breach the rules.

That reading is consistent with the gap between the definition and the prohibition. Searching and discovering are activities an AI Agent performs under Rule 1, but they are not among the acts Rule 6.J.6 forbids. Nor does the contract say anything about an assistant that displays a fare and then hands the customer a link.

Both blogs pointed to Expedia's integration with ChatGPT as an example. According to InsideFlyer, it displays flight and hotel choices but directs users to Expedia to buy. InsideFlyer also reported that United says it can identify booking sources, while noting that a booking record may show Expedia as the seller without showing whether AI handled the transaction. View from the Wing made a related point: from United's side, such a sale looks like an Expedia booking, and a contractual ban is not a technical one.

What the change costs travellers is a separate question. InsideFlyer argued that the restriction could mean more time spent completing purchases manually, particularly when comparing fares across carriers, and may limit an assistant's ability to weigh the total price, existing elite status or credit card benefits and to avoid unnecessary extras.

Kirby and the middleman

United has not explained the rule inside the contract, which carries no commentary. Its public reasons, according to View from the Wing, are privacy, unintended purchases and regulatory requirements. The airline also says bookings made by agents are still rare, the blog reported.

View from the Wing argued that the more revealing explanation came from United's chief executive. Citing the Wall Street Journal, it reported that Scott Kirby said at an event in Chicago that he did not want to create another middleman. The blog described that as the real reason for the ban. The contract itself does not connect the rule to that remark.

Airlines have fought intermediaries before. View from the Wing noted that American Airlines backed away from a plan to deny mileage earning on certain travel agency bookings, and that IATA has examined the cost of rising search volumes. It also pointed to work by Visa on ways for merchants to recognise approved agents. In October 2025, Cloudflare partnered with Visa and Mastercard to secure AI agent shopping, agreeing to support Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol.

What the contract leaves open

Several questions are not answered by the text. The first is scope. "Service a Ticket" is undefined, so the contract does not say whether an assistant that requests a seat change, checks in a passenger or files a refund request is servicing a Ticket. Rule 27, which covers refunds, contains no reference to AI agents.

The second is detection. The contract does not say how United will tell an AI agent from a person. Signed-request standards such as Web Bot Auth exist to let automated clients identify themselves, but adoption is thin: Arkose Labs reported on October 20, 2026 that 97.7% of legitimate AI agent sessions carried no verified ID. And because the definition applies "whether or not" a person supervises the software, the presence of a human in a booking session does not settle whether an AI Agent was involved.

The third is exceptions. Rule 6.J.6 and the definition contain no carve-out for approved partners, no list of permitted agents and no exception for software United itself provides. That separates United's approach from Walmart's. On October 21, 2026, Walmart set terms for outside AI agents that let them buy within customer-set limits such as $50 or $100, offering a sanctioned route for compliant agents while saying non-compliant ones would be blocked. United's contract offers no equivalent route.

Why this matters for marketers

Travel has been one of the first categories AI platforms have pushed toward completed transactions. In November 2025, Google extended agentic booking in AI Mode and said flight and hotel booking would follow; the same update took Flight Deals, which searches Google Flights inventory from more than 300 airline partners, to more than 200 countries. In January 2026, PPC Land examined why AI agents still could not book flights, citing an analysis in which an agent in ChatGPT Atlas was confused by seat selection and dynamic pricing. The obstacle then was largely technical. United has now added a contractual one, at least for its own inventory.

Retail has seen the same contest play out through other instruments. Amazon sued Perplexity on November 4, 2025 over its Comet browser's shopping agent and, on March 9, 2026, won a preliminary injunction. Amazon's block on Muse followed in September, Walmart's terms in October. Each company chose a different lever: litigation, a technical block, a gateway with conditions. United chose the contract of carriage, with cancellation and loyalty penalties behind it.

Consumer appetite points in a similar direction to United's line. A HUMAN Security survey reported by PPC Land in June found that 54% of Americans were comfortable with AI trip planning but only 12% with autonomous booking. United's rule leaves the first activity alone and closes off the second, for its tickets at least.

For advertisers and travel sellers, the practical effect is to keep the purchase on a page a human controls. If an assistant may show a United fare but not buy it, the conversion still happens after a click to United or to a travel agency, where existing tracking applies. The experience of in-chat checkout elsewhere has been mixed. Walmart's executive vice president Daniel Danker said in March 2026 that in-chat checkout through ChatGPT converted three times lower than click-out links, and OpenAI shut down Instant Checkout the same month, roughly six months after launching it with Stripe in September 2025.

The rule also bears on how travel advertising is bought. Google folded hotel, flight and other travel formats into standard Search campaigns on April 30, 2026, alongside AI Max. An airline that permits AI-assisted discovery but bars AI-assisted purchase is drawing a line through the middle of that funnel. Whether other carriers follow, and whether AI platforms adapt their booking products to hand off at the payment step, will decide how much of the agentic travel model survives contact with airline contracts.

Then there is the loyalty account. Most of the remedies in Rule 6.K are directed at the ticket. Three of them - deleting miles, revoking Elite status and terminating MileagePlus participation - are directed at the customer relationship itself. On the text, a booking made through an assistant could expose a traveller not only to cancellation but, through the general remedies clause, to measures aimed at the account that ties them to the airline. Is that a penalty United intends to apply to agent bookings? The contract does not say, and neither blog reported United addressing it.

Timeline

Summary

Who: United Airlines, which revised its Contract of Carriage, and its passengers, along with the AI assistants, AI-enabled browsers and travel agency tools the new definition covers. The change was reported by View from the Wing and InsideFlyer; View from the Wing attributed a remark about not wanting "another middleman" to chief executive Scott Kirby, citing the Wall Street Journal.

What: A new Rule 6.J.6 lists "the use of AI Agents to make, modify or service a Ticket, and/or to purchase any service or product" as a prohibited practice. Rule 5.H adds AI agent reservations to the bookings United says it will cancel without notice. A new Rule 1 definition covers autonomous and semi-autonomous software "whether or not" a person supervises or approves it. Searching for and displaying United fares is not among the prohibited acts, according to both blogs.

When: The contract is headed "revised November 11, 2026," and the change was reported today. Under Rules 3.E and 3.K, changes do not apply to tickets issued before their effective date.

Where: The Contract of Carriage applies to transportation provided by United Airlines and carriers operating as United Express, and is published on united.com.

Why: The contract gives no reason. United cites privacy, unintended purchases and regulatory requirements, according to View from the Wing, which argued that Kirby's comment about intermediaries is the more revealing explanation. For marketers, the rule keeps the airline purchase on a human-controlled page at a time when Google, OpenAI, Meta and others are building agents designed to complete transactions.