Virgin Australia Launches AI Flight Searches With ChatGPT

Virgin Australia is doubling down on its partnership with ChatGPT, launching a new way to search for flights using natural language prompts. From today, travellers can add the Virgin Australia app within ChatGPT and simply describe their travel plans to receive suggested flight options.

The AI-powered search tool can surface Virgin Australia operated flights, including both cash fares and Velocity Reward Seats. Virgin says support for partner airline flights will be added in the future.

The launch comes as AI adoption continues to surge in Australia. According to OpenAI, around 50% of Australia’s adult population use ChatGPT each week, giving airlines an opportunity to reach customers through platforms they already use.

Virgin Australia says its ChatGPT integration is designed to simplify the flight search process by helping travellers compare fares, discover Reward Seat availability and identify the best-value travel dates. However, based on our testing, the tool returned several inaccuracies, including the wrong airport, incorrect cabin classes and inaccurate Velocity Reward Seat pricing.

Virgin Australia CEO Dave Emerson claimed that the new way to locate Reward Seats would unlock more value for Velocity members.

“Through our collaboration with OpenAI, we’re giving our customers a faster, more intuitive way to plan and book their trips, all within a platform many are already using every day.”

“Importantly, we’re also unlocking more value for Velocity members with a new way to locate Reward Seats directly within ChatGPT, making it easier than ever for members to redeem their Points on flights," says Emerson.

Is Virgin Australia’s ChatGPT Search Tool Useful?

The new Virgin Australia ChatGPT flight search experience aims to make it easier to plan travel, and is able to:

• Suggest destinations based on a budget or departure city
• Highlight Reward Seat availability across multiple dates
• Identify the best-value travel periods
• Compare cash fares and Points + Pay options
• Summarise the lowest fares across a range of travel dates

In practice, the experience is impressively conversational. Rather than manually entering dates, destinations and fare preferences into the Virgin Australia website, you can simply ask ChatGPT questions such as "What are the cheapest dates to fly Melbourne to Sydney in July?” or "Find me some Business Rewards to Perth,".

It’s worth noting that you can’t just fire up ChatGPT and ask away. You have to navigate to the ‘apps’ section from the left toolbar, and search for and install the ‘Virgin Australia’ app within ChatGPT.

Then, when searching, you must select the Virgin Australia app by clicking the ‘+’ and then ‘more’ from the search window.

I started by asking ChatGPT to find the cheapest day to fly to Sydney the following week, and the results were reasonably useful. It quickly surfaced a range of fare options without requiring me to manually search across multiple dates.

This is where Virgin Australia's ChatGPT integration works best. If you're flexible on when or where you want to travel, the AI can quickly identify cheaper travel periods and compare options in a way that feels more natural than a traditional flight search.

At the same time, the benefits are less obvious if you already know your exact route and travel dates. In those cases, it's often quicker to head straight to Virgin Australia's website or app and perform a standard flight search. The tool is more useful for discovery than it is for booking a specific flight.

I then turned my attention to what is arguably the most useful feature for frequent flyers: easily searching for Velocity Reward Seats.

I asked ChatGPT to find Business Reward flights between Melbourne and Fiji in September, and the initial response was quite promising.

But after narrowing down my dates from the suggestion, ChatGPT highlighted that a return Business Reward itinerary would cost 72,000 Velocity Points - which is incorrect. According to the Velocity Reward Tables, the correct return cost is 99,000 Velocity Points, which was the original cost I was shown.

The tool also displayed Melbourne as ‘Melbourr’ and showed the fare as an ‘Economy Business Reward’.

Clearly, ChatGPT was getting confused. While we’ll probably be there soon, for now, Virgin Australia’s ChatGPT flight search cannot always be relied upon to show correct information.

Summing Up: My Take

Virgin Australia's ChatGPT integration succeeds in making flight searches more conversational. If you're flexible on dates, looking for travel inspiration or trying to quickly scan Reward Seat availability, it can save time compared to manually searching across multiple days.

However, our testing found that the tool still struggles with accuracy. Incorrect reward pricing, cabin class confusion and occasional data inconsistencies mean travellers should treat the results as a guide rather than a source of truth.

I have no doubt that this tool will eventually become useful, but for now, it’s not something I will use regularly.