I love using TripIt, but is Pro worth the price?

Without a doubt, TripIt is one of the best online travel tools I’ve come across. With very little effort, TripIt creates consolidated travel itineraries including air, hotel, and car, enabling automatic calendar integration and sharing. They even introduced an iPhone app, putting the itinerary, along with helpful links to maps and flight tracking, right in your pocket whether online or off. The company cleverly combs forwarded confirmation emails from just about every travel company and web site, extracting the pertinent bits.

I’ve become a TripIt ambassador, inviting all of my co-workers and close friends to join in. But free services have their limits, and I have long wondered how TripIt would monetize their business. The company has been partnering with airlines (like Virgin America) and airport shuttle services, but partnerships don’t keep the lights on. Eventually the company would have to find a way to make money.

The answer arrived in my inbox this morning. TripIt is introducing an optional “TripIt Pro” version which adds automatic monitoring of itineraries, notifying if your flight is delayed, for example, as well as mobile alerts. This version will cost end-users $9.95 per month (once the trial period ends).

Although I love TripIt, I’m not sure if this upgrade is worth nearly $120 per year. Airlines already send alerts of delayed or cancelled flights to my phone via email or SMS. I trust that TripIt’s alerts will be more uniform and helpful, but I doubt they’ll be that much better. For now, I’m holding off on TripIt Pro.

The company does have plans to add alternate flight options in the future, which might start adding serious value. If they can say “go to the Delta counter within the next 10 minutes to get re-booked to Boston” I’d be all over it! I’d also like to see better integration with Exchange and iPhone calendars than the current simple ICS subscription. But let’s think bigger than this.

As a frequent flier, I’d love it if TripIt could help manage my airline and hotel mileage accounts. What if it suggested ways of maximizing their value, keeping track of upgrade “stickers” and the like? What if the company monitored the latest mileage promotions? I’d also love it if they included airport tips, like which restaurant at Chicago O’Hare serves edible food (Maccaroni Grill near gate K2) and where to find a power outlet (in the outermost corridor between E and F). TripIt already points to SeatGuru’s amazing aircraft information, but how about integrating this information right into the itinerary? And I’d love to see a combination of TripIt and Kayak!

What do you think? What can TripIt add to make its Pro service worthwhile to the frequent flier?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | TripIt Goes Pro To Monetize Travel Itinerary Management
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Translation: American Airlines does not want my business anymore

I once enthused about my favorite travel sites, and among these was Kayak.com, the AJAX-y Web 2.0 travel search engine that I use to find flights. The thing I love about Kayak is that I can literally slide the dials to look for just the right departure time, connections, and even planes to make sure things work out.

But American Airlines recently decided that it didn’t like paying Kayak for referrals, and has apparently pulled its listings, even through third parties like Orbitz. Now, Southwest never included listings on Kayak, but that was no great loss to me. But I’m an American elite (Gold) and they were my strong number two airline choice. I was even thinking of shifting more business their way! But thanks to their spat over a few dollars of commission, they’re unlikely to get much more business from me.

The ironic thing is, I never used Kayak for bookings anyway! I always shifted over to my page at aa.com to buy the tickets, since it ensured that I got the right flight, codes, and instructions. So they never lost a dollar of my business to Kayak.

US Airways is becoming the Ryanair of the US!

Air travel really is getting rapidly worse. The other day I was forced to fly cross country on US Airways, and it was just depressing. The flight attendants had to pitch credit card applications over the PA and in the aisles, they charged $2 for a bottle of water or cup of coffee, and there were ads on the tray tables. Oh, and US Airways doesn’t do planeside check – they require you to check your bags through (and pay a hefty charge) if they don’t fit.

Something has to change here. The airlines are almost bankrupt, yet there is a huge volume of travelers who must get from place to place. Service is dropping, passengers are unhappy, and no one is doing anything about it. Virgin America and JetBlue seem to be eating everyone’s lunch right now, but it won’t be long before they’re in trouble, too. And I can’t fly them anyway, since neither comes to Ohio. Something’s gotta give…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | American Airlines Points Gun At Foot
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Get your reservations through Kayak

Kayak is a travel site, allowing you to search for flights, hotels, and cars. Ho-hum, right? But Kayak is a meta-site – rather than a virtual travel agent, it’s a comparator of flights, availability, and fares with high usability.

Want a three-way trip to DC and Raleigh, with no more than one connection, using only Star Alliance carriers, leaving after 6 PM, with no connections through Denver? How about finding a less-expensive hotel in Dallas in the Hilton or Starwood chains near 75 or downtown? These (totally real-life) scenarios are easy with Kayak. I should know – I booked both last month!

Kayak is the quintessential AJAX/Web 2.0 take on the mundane travel site, with fabulous animation, interactivity, and even some social features. It aggregates prices from most online sources (except Southwest), features reviews (both local and gleaned from the web), and makes its money when you click through to purchase at (m?)any of the sites shown. Check out the little-noticed map view of hotels, charts of pricing over time, and (with an account) flexible travel.

Manage tour itinerary with TripIt

Once you’ve got your tickets, your next task will be to organize your full itinerary and enter it into your calendar, which is where TripIt comes in. This nifty, new, and (so far) un-monetized service parses the confirmation emails you forward to it and makes a unified, readable, and iCalendar-exportable itinerary for you.

Since most travel receipts curiously don’t include an Outlook-compatible download, adding trip details to my calendar has long been a hassle. Although TripIt’s use of iCalendar is commendable, it’s not a complete fix, however. Although Outlook 2007 will natively show iCalendar feeds, it (and iTunes) will not sync them to my iPhone.

But all is not lost! One nice (and little-noticed) feature of TripIt is the fact that you can interact with your itinerary via email. Wondering when today’s flight is? Email plans@tripit.com with “get flight today” in the body and you’ve got your answer immediately without having to wait for EDGE or log in to a web site. In fact, I rarely go to the tripit.com site anymore – nearly all of my interaction with the service is through email.

One thing I might go to the site for is to see who else is traveling to the same places as me. Like so many sites, TripIt has a social network component, allowing others to see where you’re going, a-la the less-usable but more popular Dopplr. Speaking of Dopplr, one fun thing you can now do is populate it with data exported from TripIt – which gives you the best of both worlds!

Share the love on FlyerTalk

FlyerTalk is old school in many ways.  It’s basically a discussion forum for business travelers, with no fancy social networking software or transparent slide-over animated AJAX web thingamabobs.  But it’s absolutely indispensable if you want to make the most of your frequent flier miles and hotel points.  And it wouldn’t hurt if you’re a little on the fanatical side when it comes to air travel jargon and the like!

With your FlyerTalk account, you can participate in scintillating discussions on the latest Hilton or Starwood promotions, learn about secret codes that get you a discount (or not!) at National Car, figure out which resort to stay at, and learn what goes on behind the scenes in these industries.  The truly odd can learn about the time someone carried on the kitchen sink, the depths of dislike for US Airways, and what the colored lights by the exit mean.

Unlike so many supposed social networks, FlyerTalk is a community.  I’ve met many FlyerTalkers online and some in person, and everyone is thoroughly dedicated to making the most of our time spent away from home.  It would be worth it even without Coupon Connection – but of course rule 1 is, nobody talks about Coupon Connection!

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the sites mentioned here and receive no compensation from them. I am just very pleased with the (free) service I get from them and want to share the love with my friends.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Three Incredible Travel Websites You Ought To Use
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.