5 secret ChatGPT travel codes

Happy Wednesday,

Today I've got five secret travel codes for ChatGPT, how to build your own AI agent in Microsoft Copilot, why ChatGPT gets 39% worse the longer you talk to it (and the two ways to fix it), and how AI turned one guy's $1,800 car repair into $0.

Let's get into it.

🧠 TRY THIS

5 Secret Travel Codes for ChatGPT

Here are five secret travel codes for ChatGPT. I travel full time, so I'm constantly in airports, new cities and restaurants where I can't read the menu, and these five cover all of it. Each one is a short code you type in with your details, and ChatGPT does the rest. Give these a go before or on your next trip and you'll see how insane they are.

1. /layover.

ChatGPT builds you a mini itinerary for your layover, including exactly when you need to leave for the airport. No more sitting at the gate for six hours because you weren't sure you'd make it back.

2. /hidden-gems.

It skips the tourist traps and gives you the spots locals actually go. The restaurants, the views, the neighborhoods that never show up in the top 10 lists.

3. /packing.

It builds you an entire packing list around the real weather forecast for where you're going. So you're not packing a winter coat for a city that's going to be 70 degrees.

4. /translate-menu.

Take a photo of any menu, in any language, and ChatGPT tells you what every dish actually is and what's worth ordering.

5. /seat-hack.

It tells you the best open seat on your exact plane and when to check in to actually get it.

These are literally life-changing. And honestly, they're just the start. There are so many more ways to use ChatGPT on a trip: have it plan your whole day around your flight times, tell you the tipping rules and the five phrases you'll actually need, check the entry rules for your passport before you book, or find you the cheapest way from the airport to your hotel. Once you start treating ChatGPT like a travel assistant in your pocket, you'll never plan a trip the old way again.

One quick tip: for anything that changes, like flight times, seat maps and the forecast, ChatGPT searches the web live, so double-check the important stuff (like when your flight boards) against your airline's app.

Get 100 more travel codes for ChatGPT →

SPONSORED BY MICROSOFT

Build Your Own AI Agent in Copilot

It's never been easier to build your own AI agent, and Microsoft Copilot is changing the game with Agent Builder. Building your first agent is a lot less intimidating than it sounds. You don't have to start from scratch or know how to code. Here's a simple way to try it.

Start with one thing your team does over and over, like the question everyone asks you or the process you explain to every new hire. That's your first agent.

Step 1: Open the Microsoft Copilot app (or go to copilot.cloud.microsoft) and sign in with your work account. Click Agents & Skills in the left sidebar, then select New agent.

Step 2: In the Message Agent Builder box, describe what it should do, like: "Answer new hires' questions about our time-off policy, expenses and who to ask for what." Copilot writes the instructions for you.

Step 3: Click the + to add what your agent should know, like your employee handbook or a SharePoint folder.

Step 4: Test it in Try it, then click Create.

Step 5: Click Share, choose who can use it, and share it with your team.

And when your teammates use it, they'll only get answers from content they already have access to. No one gets access to your files just because you shared the agent.

Want to take your agent further? Agent Builder is ideal for quick, lightweight agents. For more advanced capabilities, copy your agent into Microsoft Copilot Studio, where you can add tools to help it take actions like sending emails or updating a spreadsheet. You can also publish it in Microsoft Teams or other places your team already works every day.

Pick one visible, repetitive task, the one you'd happily never do again. Build an agent for it this week, share it, and give your team their time back.

Start building with Copilot Studio →

🚨 THIS IS WILD

ChatGPT Gets 39% Worse the Longer You Talk to It

The longer you talk to ChatGPT in one chat, the worse its answers get.

Researchers at Microsoft and Salesforce tested 15 of the top AI models, including ChatGPT and Claude, across more than 200,000 conversations. When they gave the AI everything it needed up front, it did great. But when the same information came in bit by bit over a long back-and-forth, performance dropped 39% on average.

For those who don't know, this comes down to something called a context window. It's basically the AI's short-term memory. Every time you send a message, the AI doesn't just read your new message. It rereads the entire chat from the very top, every single time, and then answers.

Think of it like a whiteboard. Every message you send gets written on it, and before every answer, the AI reads the whole board. At the start of a chat, the board is clean and easy to read. An hour in, it's covered. Old ideas you dropped are still up there, a wrong guess from your third message is still sitting in the corner, and once the board fills up, the oldest stuff starts getting erased to make room.

That's exactly what the researchers saw. Once the AI takes one wrong turn early, it gets lost and doesn't recover, because that wrong turn is still on the board, steering every answer after it.

A lot of people who start using AI do this, and this might still be you. You have one chat where everything happens, and you keep going back to it because it feels like it already knows everything. But I promise you, this is why your answers keep getting worse.

There are two ways to fix it.

1. Summarize it into a fresh chat. When a chat starts getting long, paste this:

Then open a brand new chat and paste it in. It's like talking to a fresh ChatGPT that still knows everything that matters.

2. Save it as a skill. If you're in Claude, or you want to be a little more advanced, this is the better move, especially if it's something you do over and over in that chat, like writing your weekly emails or planning your content. Just say:

Claude builds the skill, and you save it in Claude under Customize → Skills. Now whenever you start a new chat, just type / and pick your skill, and it's back with everything it learned, on a clean whiteboard. (You'll need Code execution and file creation turned on in Settings → Capabilities.)

ChatGPT has skills too on some plans, mostly Business, Enterprise and Edu right now. Ask it to "build me a skill from this chat," click Install, and then @ the skill's name in any new chat.

Read the full study →

💰 SAVE THIS

AI Turned an $1,800 Car Repair Into $0

This is the kind of AI story I love.

A guy in West Virginia took his Toyota to the dealership after his check engine light came on. They told him he needed a new exhaust part, and the quote was $1,800. The worst part: his car was only about 3,000 miles past its warranty. So close.

Instead of just paying it, he asked ChatGPT. It told him the price looked a little high, and then it told him something most people have never heard of: ask Toyota for "goodwill" help. Basically, when a part fails right after the warranty runs out, carmakers will sometimes cover the repair anyway to keep you happy. You just have to ask.

So he reached out to Toyota, and according to his Reddit post, he ended up paying nothing. $1,800 down to $0.

I love stories like these, because they really make you think about all the different ways you can use AI, and the way you should be talking to it. He even said that on his own, his anxiety would've pushed him to just pay the quote. A lot of people are like that, and this is exactly the kind of thing AI is great for.

And this works for way more than cars. Your phone, your laptop, your fridge, anything that breaks right after the warranty ends. So the next time you get a big repair quote, paste this before you pay:

Just know that goodwill is up to the company, not a guarantee, so it won't work every time. But asking takes five minutes, and the worst they can say is no.

And if you've got a bill that feels too high, I've got a whole free guide on using ChatGPT to fight it, with all the prompts.

Get my free guide to fighting your bills with ChatGPT →

Save the travel codes for your next trip, and the next time a chat starts getting long, reset it. And if there's a repair quote sitting on your counter right now, run that prompt before you pay it. If it saves you money, reply and tell me how much.

See you Sunday.

Maverick

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