Splitting Expenses When Redeeming Points For Travel: What’s Fair? - One Mile at a Time

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner. Travel companies face a new distribution question: Will AI simply refer travelers to brand websites, or will discovery and booking move into AI conversations?

Photo Credit: A trio of travelers during a hike.  Unsplash / NEOM Travel often pictures the sustainable traveler as part of an earnest tribe that books the eco-lodge and pays a green surcharge. Our evidence strongly suggests this is a misconception. Skift’s research with 74,000 travel consumers in the top 40 outbound markets shows 77% believe travel should benefit communities and the environment, and 24% go further, actively seeking sustainable options and accepting trade-offs to get them.

Photo Credit: Left: Dylan Ratigan, Journalist, Author, and Entrepreneur, Reservations. AI; Center: Eduardo Santander, CEO, European Travel Commission; Right: Moderator: Rafat Ali, CEO/Founder, Skift. They spoke at the Skift Transatlantic Summit 2026 in Dublin, Ireland, France wants international visitors to spend €100 billion a year by 2030, up 29% from last year’s level, without adding to the crowds in Paris and its other best-known cities. The plan relies on longer stays, higher spending per night, and more off-peak travel.

Agoda has “doubled” its supply of premium accommodation over the past four years, Andrew Smith, senior vice president of supply at the Booking Holdings-owned online travel agency, told Skift. Recent deals with luxury groups show how Agoda is adding that inventory.

Some Vrbo listings will be allowed to keep their annual subscriptions even as Vrbo ends its legacy subscription model on October 29, Skift has learned. They include some users of Vrbo’s in-house Escapia property management system, as well as others not on Escapia. Most listings on annual plans will be required to move to a 12% commission on each booking when their plans expire. The subscription can cost less than that for some hosts, and some hosts and homeowners have expressed concern about the change.