Standby Stay
A hotel concierge for airline staff flying standby. It lines up a hotel in every city you might land in and books only once you're cleared to board.
Your standby journey
Hotel options, ready in every city
Hotel shortlist
Top pick
Boarding-pass-style hotel card
Backup option
Another stay ready if needed
You decide when to book
Confirm your flight first. Your hotel is ready when you are.
Read the transcript
Pending · transcript of the edited video
The problem
Standby travel lets airline employees fly on empty seats, but nothing is certain until the gate. Seats depend on paid bookings, weight limits, crew duty, and the captain's call.
Valentina knew the routine well. She and her husband would research hotels in advance, then book one in a rush from the plane, using the last of the gate Wi-Fi once they finally knew where they were going.
What she built
Standby Stay does the hotel research before the trip. It searches each city the traveler might end up in and holds a top pick and a backup in each one.
Nothing is booked until the traveler confirms they have cleared the flight. Then the hotel for that city is ready to go.
Hotel options appear as old-school boarding pass cards, so they fit the way standby travelers already think about their trip.
How it was built
Live hotel inventory
Standby Stay searches live hotel inventory through RouteStack's single MCP endpoint.
Built with AI
Valentina planned, designed, and built the product by prompting an AI tool. The boarding pass card design came out of that collaboration.
Starter packs and docs
She used RouteStack's starter packs and documentation to go from idea to working product in three weeks.
Support from real people
When her AI tool decided hotel reservations weren't possible, she contacted the RouteStack team. A quick reply from a real person helped her fix her prompting and finish the booking flow.
“Every standby trip used to end with us booking a hotel from the plane on the last bit of gate Wi-Fi. Standby Stay does that research before you leave, so the only thing left to do at the gate is board.”
What's next
Valentina is expanding the chat so it can handle more complex standby trips that span several cities and time zones. She's also adding stronger security and turning her attention to getting Standby Stay in front of more travelers.
Project facts
- Builder
- Valentina Borovaya
- What it does
- Hotel concierge for standby travelers
- Built with
- RouteStack MCP
- Inventory used
- Hotels
- Build time
- 3 weeks
Build your own travel agent
Get live flight, hotel, and car inventory through one MCP endpoint. You start with 400 free credits.