Privacy

What Relay sees, and what it keeps to itself.

Last updated 27 October 2026. Relay is a private beta run by a four-person team; this notice describes what we actually do today, and we will update it before we do anything else.

The short version

Relay is a travel agent you text. What you tell Relay in your conversation with it is never shown to anyone else on the trip, including the organiser. Everyone sees the options and the outcome, not whose answer produced them. If you ask us to book, we collect the details needed to book you and use them only for that.

How Relay reaches you

Relay works in private iMessage conversations; it does not join group chats. The organiser of a trip gives Relay the phone numbers of the people they want to invite, and Relay messages each of them to introduce itself and the trip. If you don’t want to take part, tell Relay you’re out, or write to tlong7@uw.edu and we will delete your number.

What we store

For each person on a trip:

• your phone number and the name you give Relay;
• your answers for the trip: where you’re travelling from, your dates, your budget and what you want or want to avoid;
• your vote, and the decision the trip reached;
• your most recent messages with Relay (up to 40), so it can follow the conversation.

Relay also remembers some things across trips, so you don’t have to repeat them: your home airport, travel preferences, and seat and bag preferences.

When you ask us to book

When you reply “book it”, Relay asks for what an airline and hotel need: your legal name, date of birth and email, and optionally your loyalty program numbers, Known Traveler Number and seat preference. Relay keeps these for your next booking unless you ask it to forget them.

These details go to our team by email. We use them to book your trip by hand, and share them only with the airlines and hotels you’re booked with, as they require. You pay through a secure payment link from our payment provider. Relay will never ask you to text a card number.

Seeing and deleting what Relay remembers

• Text Relay “what do you know about me” to see what it remembers.
• Text “forget my birthday”, or “delete my info” to remove everything it remembers about you.
• To delete your trips and messages too, write to tlong7@uw.edu.

Where it’s kept

Relay’s working data is kept in a private file on the computer that runs it, and a copy of trips, votes and decisions is kept in our database. We don’t copy identity details (legal names, birth dates, loyalty and Known Traveler numbers) into the database unless we need them there to complete a booking.

The waitlist form

If you sign up on this site we store your email address and whatever else you chose to give us: name, group size, which chat app your group uses, when the trip is, and your note. We also record your browser’s user-agent string and which page you submitted from, to tell real signups from bots.

We use it to decide who to onboard first and to email you about Relay. We do not sell it, share it with advertisers, or add you to anyone else’s list. Reply to any email from us, or write to tlong7@uw.edu, and we will delete you.

Who else processes it

• Photon — delivers Relay’s iMessages.
• Anthropic — its Claude models read your messages to understand them, and write Relay’s replies and options. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms, this content is not used to train its models.
• Resend — sends booking requests, including your booking details, to our team by email.
• Supabase — our database, including the waitlist.
• Duffel — flight prices. It receives only routes and dates, nothing about you.
• The airlines, hotels and payment provider for any trip you ask us to book.

How long we keep it

Trip data is kept while the trip is live and for 12 months after, so a returning group starts from what was already decided. What Relay remembers across trips is kept until you ask it to forget it. Booking records are kept as long as the booking needs them and as long as the law requires for our records. Waitlist entries are kept until you ask us to remove them or until we close the beta list. Ask us to delete a trip and we delete it, including the private answers attached to it.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. One email to tlong7@uw.edu is enough; we aim to answer within seven days. If you are in the UK or EU you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

Relay is not for people under 16. Don’t give Relay the number of anyone under 16.

Changes

If we change how any of this works we will update this page and date it. Material changes get an email to everyone on the list.