How to Use Expedia in 2026: Step-by-Step Guide
Expedia's AI travel assistant Romie helps plan and book complete trips — searching flights, comparing hotels, finding activities, and bundling them into itineraries. Ask in plain language, get real-time prices, and book without switching between tabs.
Expedia is one of the world's largest online travel agencies, and its AI assistant Romie (launched 2024) brings conversational trip planning to its inventory of 900K+ hotels, flights from 500+ airlines, and 200K+ activities worldwide.
What Romie Does
Romie understands trip planning conversations, not just search queries. Tell it "I want a beach vacation from NYC in July, under $3,000 for two, preferably somewhere I haven't been" and it searches, filters, and presents options that match. It can handle:
- End-to-end trip planning: flights + hotel + activities in one session
- Price comparison: compare multiple airlines or hotel options side by side
- Itinerary building: day-by-day schedules based on your interests
- Real-time rebooking: if a flight is canceled, Romie helps find alternatives fast
- Price tracking: alerts when prices drop on trips you're watching
Booking Integration
Unlike standalone travel AI tools, Romie is embedded in Expedia's full booking platform. Everything it suggests can be booked immediately — no handoff to a separate website. Flight, hotel, and activity inventory are live, not cached.
One Key Package Deals
Expedia's bundle pricing often makes hotel + flight packages cheaper than booking separately. Romie surfaces these bundle deals during planning, which pure chatbot tools can't offer because they lack inventory integration.
Who It's Best For
Expedia + Romie works best for travelers who want to compare and book in one place. If you're price-sensitive and willing to use multiple tools to find the absolute lowest price, tools like Google Flights or dedicated comparison sites may find better single-leg deals. But for complete trip planning with real booking capability, Romie is among the strongest options.
Pricing
Expedia is free to use; prices reflect actual travel costs. One Key rewards program earns points on bookings redeemable for future discounts.
What You'll Need
- A Expedia account (free to create)
- A modern web browser or the Expedia app
Getting Started
Create Your Account
Visit https://www.expedia.com/ and sign up for a free account. You'll need an email address to register.
Start Your First Conversation
Once logged in, you'll see the main chat interface. Type a question or task in the input box and press Enter. Expedia supports trip-planning, flight-search, hotel-comparison, itinerary-building, price-alerts, package-deals, real-time-booking, activity-search — start with a simple text prompt to get familiar.
Pro Tips
- Be specific: The more context you provide, the better the response. Instead of "write an email," try "write a professional follow-up email to a client who hasn't responded in two weeks."
- Iterate: If you don't get what you need, ask for clarification or refinement: "Make it shorter" or "Use a more formal tone."
- Use examples: Show Expedia what format you want by including an example in your prompt.
- Save useful conversations: Most platforms let you name and revisit conversations — organize by project or topic.
Common Use Cases
Travel
AI assistants for trip planning, destination recommendations, itineraries, and travel tips.
Browse Travel chatbots →Troubleshooting
- Responses seem generic or unhelpful
- Add more context to your prompt. Specify the audience, tone, length, and format you need. Try starting over with a clearer description of your goal.
- The tool isn't responding or is slow
- AI chatbots can experience high traffic. Refresh the page and try again. Check the service's status page if issues persist.
- Output is too long or too short
- Explicitly specify the length: "in 100 words," "as a brief summary," or "in detail with examples."
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Expedia free to use?
- Yes, Expedia is completely free to use.
- Do I need an account to use Expedia?
- You may be able to try Expedia without an account, though a free account unlocks more features and saves your history.
- What can I use Expedia for?
- Expedia's AI travel assistant Romie helps plan and book complete trips — searching flights, comparing hotels, finding activities, and bundling them into itineraries. Ask in plain language, get real-time prices, and book without switching between tabs.
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