How Navan’s Newest AI Is Approaching the Most Frustrating Parts of Hotel Travel

You’re exhausted after a day of travel, finally get to the hotel, and the front desk says, “We don’t have your payment details on file.” Suddenly, you’re digging for a personal card, waiting for approvals, or, worse, watching your room get reassigned. Every minute spent sorting out a payment issue isn’t just frustrating for travelers; it’s wasted time, hidden costs, and extra work for finance operations teams.

This is where Navan comes in with our new AI-powered check-in solutions for credit card authorizations (CCA) and late-night check-ins, a game-changer for travelers and finance teams. By leveraging our newest agentic AI, Navan is automating, verifying, and confirming hotel payments in advance for travelers — delivering measurable savings in time and money while offering a smooth experience for travelers. But that’s not all — our agentic AI also monitors hotel bookings and proactively notifies hotels of late arrivals, ensuring travelers are never left without a room.

Navan’s agentic AI isn’t just AI for AI’s sake, it was designed in response to feedback from travel admins who deal with CCA and late-night check-in issues every day. It isn’t just another background process either — it interacts with hotels, eliminating the “last-mile” failures. Navan’s deep experience integrating hotel, payment, and itinerary data means problems are solved before they happen.

Here’s what sets it apart:

• Proactive payment confirmation: Before a traveler reaches the lobby, Navan’s AI is set to contact the hotel to verify the reservation and confirm payment — eliminating costly surprises and time-consuming fixes.
• Real-time safeguards for late arrivals: Flight delayed or arriving late? Our AI monitors travel itineraries and will call the hotel ahead of time to help ensure the room is held, even after hours.
• Seamless check-ins: If the hotel can’t find the credit card authorization confirmation, travelers can resend their information with one click through the Navan app — no frantic calls, manual forms, or wasted staff hours.

This is currently rolling out for Navan Expense customers across North America in English, with plans to expand to support additional countries and languages. With Navan, experience smooth check-ins, protection, and freed-up finance teams — powered by Navan Cognition, the proprietary AI framework built for business travel at scale.