Can ChatGPT book your restaurant or trip?

ChatGPT has always been good at suggesting where to eat or what to see, but until recently it could not look up a real table at 7 p.m. or a real hotel price. Plugins change part of that. A plugin is an add-on that lets ChatGPT call an outside service, such as a restaurant reservation site, and bring live results back into the chat.

What plugins do not do is complete the purchase for you. The OpenTable plugin returns restaurant suggestions with links to book on OpenTable. The Expedia plugin builds an itinerary, and when you are ready to book, it sends you to Expedia to finish. Think of ChatGPT as a well-informed friend who finds options and hands you the phone, not a travel agent who signs on your behalf.

Turning plugins on

Since May 12, OpenAI has been rolling out web browsing and plugins as beta features to all ChatGPT Plus subscribers. "Beta" means the features are still experimental and may change. To use them:

1. Open Settings, then Beta features, and switch on Plugins.
2. Start a new chat and pick Plugins in the model menu at the top.
3. Open the Plugin store from the plugins dropdown, then install OpenTable, Expedia or both.
4. Make sure the plugins you want are ticked as enabled for this chat.

Once a plugin is enabled, ChatGPT decides on its own when to call it based on what you ask.

A worked session: dinner and a weekend away

Here is a single request that gives both plugins something to do.

I'm planning a weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, arriving Friday June 16 and leaving Sunday June 18, for two adults.
1. Find a hotel within walking distance of the historic district, under $250 a night, with good reviews.
2. Suggest a highly reviewed brunch spot for Sunday around 11 a.m. that can seat two.
3. Show me what you found as a short table with name, area, price or price range, and the booking link.
Don't book anything; I'll choose.

The flow typically looks like this. The steps are illustrative of how the plugins work, not a recorded transcript.

The real value is in steps 1 to 3. You describe the trip once, in normal sentences, and get a shortlist that already respects your budget, dates and preferences. Follow-up questions work too: "Which of these hotels is closest to the waterfront?" or "Any brunch spots with outdoor seating?"

Where it falls short

Plugins are early, and a few limits show up quickly.

• No checkout in the chat. You always finish on the partner's site. That is a sensible safety choice, but it means the chat is a planning step, not the whole job.
• One catalog at a time. The OpenTable plugin only knows restaurants on OpenTable, and the Expedia plugin only searches Expedia's inventory. A small local bistro that takes bookings by phone will not appear.
• Limited reach. OpenTable said its plugin would start with a small group of Plus subscribers in the United States and Canada before wider release, so results outside those markets may be thin.
• Prices and tables move. What the plugin returns is a snapshot. By the time you click, the room price or the 11 a.m. slot may have changed.
• ChatGPT can still be wrong. It can misread a detail from a plugin result or mix up two places in its summary. Treat the partner's booking page as the source of truth.

When is doing it yourself still faster?

When you already know what you want. If you have a favorite restaurant and only need a table on Friday, opening OpenTable or calling takes less time than enabling a plugin, writing a prompt and then clicking through anyway. The same goes for booking a hotel you have stayed at before or a flight on an airline where you collect points.

It is also faster to go direct when the decision depends on things the plugin cannot see well: a specific room type, a seat map, a loyalty discount, a dietary need you want to discuss with the restaurant, or a group booking that needs a deposit. These need the full booking site or a person on the phone.

Plugins earn their place in the open-ended part of planning: a city you do not know, flexible dates, several people's preferences, or a budget to respect across a hotel and a few meals. Let ChatGPT narrow the choices, then book the final pick yourself on the partner's site, where you can see every detail before you pay.