Amsterdam founders launch Away.ai: an AI-based travel agent

Amsterdam - Today, Loes Daniels and Jorik Schröder, the founders of Experiencegift, are launching their new platform Away.ai: a Dutch AI travel platform that puts together and books a complete travel package (flight and hotel) within minutes, based on personal preferences, budget, and timing. Where travelers currently spend an average of hours comparing dozens of websites and browser tabs, Away.ai aims to reduce that process to a single conversation and a single right choice. The platform is available immediately for the Dutch market.

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Daniels and Schröder previously built Experiencegift, the Amsterdam-based company behind Hotelgift, Flightgift, Traingift, and Activitygift, through which they have helped more than a million travelers in over 100 countries since 2013, growing the company into an international player without external investors. The company won the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and, in 2023, the Oryx, the top prize of the FD Gazellen Awards for the company with the Netherlands' most exceptional growth performance. With Away.ai, they are now channeling the years of travel-industry experience they built up since 2013 fully into AI. Their new mission: to make booking travel just as effortless as traveling itself.

Booking a trip today is more tiring than the trip itself. Twenty-seven open tabs, hundreds of options, and after hours of searching you're still not sure you made the right choice. Today's traveler doesn't want more choice, but the right choice. Away.ai understands what suits you, selects the best options for the best value for money, and books the trip within minutes. With us, your vacation already begins the moment you book.

Loes Daniels, founder and CEO of Away.ai

Smart technology, personal outcome

Instead of endless search results and filters, Away.ai uses a proprietary algorithm that translates preferences, travel companions, timing, and budget into a limited number of carefully selected travel options. In doing so, the platform optimizes for value for money and regularly surprises users with destinations they would never have found themselves, but which fit exactly what they're looking for.

Behind a single conversation is a system that searches real-time prices, availability, and quality data from thousands of flights and hotels. Our algorithm translates preferences into a handful of options that genuinely fit, instead of hundreds of search results. Everything we've learned about travelers since 2013 is built into that system.

Jorik Schröder, co-founder of Away.ai

Travel credit with every booking

Away.ai is also introducing its own rewards model. Every booking adds travel credit to the personal Away Wallet: 2 percent back on every trip, rising to 4 percent when paying entirely from the Wallet. The credit can be spent immediately on a future trip, with no expiring points, loyalty tiers, or fine print. In doing so, the platform aims not only to save travelers time and money when booking, but also to reward them for every trip they take through Away.ai.

International ambition in a market on the move

The launch comes at a time when artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the travel industry. Major international players are investing heavily in AI-driven travel planning; Expedia Group, for instance, acquired the Berlin-based AI travel startup Layla just this month. Away.ai is starting in the Netherlands and is built to scale internationally, with teams in Amsterdam, London, New York, Athens, and Dubai. "The race for the traveler of the future is in full swing. We believe that race won't be won by whoever shows the most options, but by whoever makes the right choice for the traveler, at the best value," says Daniels.

Media Contact

Loes Daniels

Founder [email protected]