TRAVEL / APPS SPECIAL ...........Free apps to improve your travel experience

Free apps to improve your travel experience 

Free travel apps for your mobile phone can make it easier to book flights and hotel rooms, share itineraries with friends, as well as search for discounts at local restaurants

Tripalong (tripalong.in)
Wouldn’t it be great to bump into a good friend while waiting for hours at an airport? Tripalong helps enable such serendipitous meetings. Just log on to tripalong.in, register and key in your flight details. The app will sync your travel itinerary with those of your friends, who are also registered with Tripalong, and inform you if any of them are at the same place—flight, airport or city—at the same time as you are. This free app works on all smartphones. If you want to avoid certain acquaintances, you can change your privacy settings to share travel plans with a select few.
The app synchronises flight details irrespective of the website you have purchased your tickets from. The app works smoothly only if you have access to high-speed Internet, so good connectivity is important. The lack of alerts for flight schedules, departures and arrivals erodes some of its sheen.

TripIt (tripit.com)
TripIt is a free mobile travel organiser, which consolidates confirmations from hotels, airlines, car rentals and restaurants, from your e-mail account to your TripIt account. All you need to do is forward confirmation e-mails from the website that you used to book your flight/hotel to plans@tripit.com. The app will then make an itinerary, which you can share via e-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. For $49 ( 2,714) a year, you can upgrade to the ‘pro’ version of the app, which will alert you about your flight status and alternate flights.
If you upgrade to the pro version of the app, it will alert you when air fares decline, so that you can book a cheaper flight. In the free version, you will have to be careful about the information that the app consolidates and shares with your friends since you cannot undo it if you want to keep some aspects of your itinerary a secret.

MakeMyTrip (makemytrip.com/mobile/)
MakeMyTrip’s travel management app allows you to do everything a travel agent can: search and book flights, make cancellations, track refunds and schedule alerts. You can also store multiple passenger details on your gadget so you won’t need to type in details each time you want to book a flight. The app uses the phone’s GPS to find your travel destination and then zero in on travel deals and restaurants. MakeMyTrip is upping the social quotient too by allowing the app to share itineraries on Facebook and Twitter. It can be downloaded for free on Google Play, Apple’s App Store and BlackBerry’s App World.
The app supports payments through credit and debit cards as well as Net banking. You can’t use it to book international flights, only domestic ones. Also, there is no option of booking train tickets.

BlackBerry Travel (in.blackberry.com/devices/features/blackberry_travel.jsp)
The app is available only for BlackBerry smartphones and is a handy travel manager, which helps you plan, book, manage, and share your travel plans. When you create an account on the app, it automatically starts synchronising travel confirmations from your e-mail account to its account and the BlackBerry calendar. You can search for deals on hotels and car rentals as well as arrange for a pick-up/drop service to your destination from the airport. It also shows any LinkedIn contacts who might be visiting the same place as you.
    You can book a hotel room directly from the travel app.
    You cannot book flights, and social sharing is limited to LinkedIn.

ViewTrip Mobile (travelportviewtripmobile.com/)
If you are a member of Travelport’s ViewTrip, the site that consolidates your travel schedule, you should download its app for your mobile phone too. ViewTrip is linked to worldwide ticket booking agencies, such as Galileo, so whenever you book a flight or hotel, the information is updated on your ViewTrip profile. The app is available for Android and Apple phones and manages your travel itinerary, provides flight updates, live weather forecast, even airport and city guides.
You can check deals and discounts at local restaurants in your travel destination. There’s a currency conversion segment too, which helps search for banks near you.
The app checks its server continuously for updates, so your data charges, especially while roaming, may be high. 

Milan Sharma. ET1208006