Gondola — Travel MCP Server & Claude Code Plugin

The travel MCP that shows cash and award rates side by side. Search hotels, flights, and rental cars across every major hotel chain and loyalty program — with cents-per-point valuations, loyalty balance tracking, rate alerts, and direct booking — right from your AI client.

Built for points and miles: unlike award-flight-only tools, Gondola covers hotels, flights, and cars, and puts the cash price and the award (points) price in one view so you can see exactly when a redemption beats cash.

Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Gemini CLI, and any MCP-compatible client. Learn more at gondola.ai/mcp.

Endpoint: https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp (Streamable HTTP)
Auth: search & discovery work anonymously — no account, no API key. Personal tools (loyalty balances, trips, saved profiles) and booking use standard MCP OAuth 2.1 with Dynamic Client Registration — your client signs you in on first use, no key to copy.
Tools: 34 across hotels, flights, rental cars, loyalty, and analytics.

Quick Install

Claude Code plugin (recommended)

Inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add gondola-ai/gondola-mcp
/plugin install gondola

This adds the Gondola MCP server plus slash commands (/hotel-points, /award-flights, /worth-it, /optimize-points). On first use of a personal tool, your client opens gondola.ai to sign you in via OAuth — takes a few seconds, no API key.

Or add the MCP server directly (any client)

Search tools work anonymously; personal/booking tools trigger an OAuth login on first call. No client needs an mcp-remote bridge — every client below supports remote Streamable HTTP natively.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http gondola https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp

Codex CLI

codex mcp add gondola --url https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp

Or in ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.gondola]
url = "https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp"

Cursor — ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in a project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gondola": { "url": "https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp" }
  }
}

Windsurf — ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (note: serverUrl, not url):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gondola": { "serverUrl": "https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp" }
  }
}

VS Code (Copilot / Agent mode)

code --add-mcp '{"name":"gondola","type":"http","url":"https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp"}'

Or .vscode/mcp.json (note: top-level key is servers):

{
  "servers": {
    "gondola": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp" }
  }
}

Gemini CLI — ~/.gemini/settings.json (note: httpUrl, not url):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gondola": { "httpUrl": "https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp" }
  }
}

Claude Desktop — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → name gondola, URL https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp. Leave the OAuth client fields and headers blank (DCR handles it).

ChatGPT — Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Developer mode, then Add custom connector → URL https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp, auth = OAuth. (Anonymous search works pre-login; personal tools require the OAuth sign-in.)

Related MCP server: Award Flight Daily MCP Server

What you can do

Ask naturally, or use the slash commands the plugin installs.

Compare cash vs. points for hotels

"Find hotels in Tokyo for March 3–7 and show cash vs points with cents-per-point"
"Is it worth using Bonvoy points for the Ritz in Maui that week, or pay cash?"
"Cheapest 5-night Hyatt stay in Lisbon on points in May"

/hotel-points Tokyo 2026-03-03 2026-03-07
/worth-it Ritz-Carlton Maui, 4 nights in March, Bonvoy

Search award + cash flights together

"Business class SFO to Tokyo in November — award and cash side by side"
"Cheapest way to fly JFK→LHR in points under 60k?"

/award-flights SFO HND 2026-11-10 business

Make your points work harder

"Where are my points worth the most right now?"
"I have 180k Amex points and 90k Bonvoy — best redemption for a beach trip in March?"

/optimize-points a beach trip in March

Signed-in users also get loyalty balances, upcoming/past trips, free-night certificates, saved traveler profiles, and rate alerts.

MCP tools (34)

Search & discovery tools are anonymous. Tools marked 🔒 use your account and require the one-time OAuth sign-in; booking tools 📕 place or manage real reservations.

Hotels

Tool	What it does
`search_hotels`	Find hotels with cash and award (points) rates.
`compare_rates`	Cash vs points side by side, with cents-per-point value.
`get_hotel_details`	Full detail for one property.
`get_multi_night_rates`	Per-night rate breakdown across a stay.
`get_similar_hotels`	Comparable properties to one you like.
`get_hotel_stats`	Rate/availability stats for a hotel.
`get_hotel_reviews`	Guest reviews.
`predict_price`	Price prediction for a stay.
`get_suggested_searches`	Suggested searches / inspiration.
`get_booking_link`	Direct booking link.
`book_hotel` 🔒📕	Book a hotel.

Flights

Tool	What it does
`search_flights`	Award and cash flight search with booking links.

Rental cars

Tool	What it does
`search_vehicles`	Search rental cars.
`get_vehicle_details`	Detail for one vehicle/offer.
`credit_card_coverage`	Check credit-card rental insurance coverage.
`get_vehicle_booking_coverage`	Coverage on a specific booking.
`get_vehicle_booking_link`	Direct booking link.
`book_vehicle` 🔒📕	Book a rental car.
`get_vehicle_booking` 🔒	Retrieve a car booking.
`cancel_vehicle_booking` 🔒📕	Cancel a car booking.

Loyalty & analytics

Tool	What it does
`get_loyalty_accounts` 🔒	Your loyalty point balances.
`optimize_loyalty_portfolio` 🔒	Where your points are worth the most.
`get_free_night_credits` 🔒	Free-night certificates you hold.
`diagnose_rates`	Explain why a rate is what it is.

Trips, alerts & profile

Tool	What it does
`get_upcoming_trips` 🔒	Your upcoming trips.
`get_past_trips` 🔒	Your past trips.
`get_booking` 🔒	Retrieve a specific booking.
`get_rate_alerts` 🔒	Your rate alerts.
`create_rate_alert` 🔒	Create a rate alert.
`delete_rate_alert` 🔒	Delete a rate alert.
`get_travel_profiles` 🔒	Saved traveler profiles.
`update_traveler_profile` 🔒	Update a traveler profile.
`get_traveler_context` 🔒	Your traveler context/preferences.
`get_payment_methods` 🔒	Saved payment methods.

Why Gondola

Cash and award, together. Every search shows the cash price beside the points price with a cents-per-point value — the "is this redemption worth it?" question, answered inline.
Every major chain + program, not a single airline or a single OTA.
Real bookings, not just search — hotels and cars book straight through.
No API key. Anonymous search out of the box; OAuth only when you reach for your own data.

Self-hosting

You don't need to self-host. Gondola is a hosted service — connect your client directly to https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp using any method above.

The Dockerfile in this repo is not the Gondola server. It's a thin stdio proxy (via mcp-remote) that bridges to the hosted endpoint, so MCP registries that introspect stdio servers can index Gondola's tools from this repository. It simply forwards to https://mcp.gondola.ai/mcp — running it yourself gains you nothing over connecting to the hosted server directly. It exists for registry indexing only.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Gondola AI