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TripIt is one of the most well known travel applications on the market. It’s available on all of the major application platforms (iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry & Windows Phone 7) and also has a web interface. It allows you to easily organize all of your travel data in one place automatically. Below we look at all of the features of the free version and the pro version ($49) and tell you if it’s worth the price tag.
TripIt Free
Create a detailed itinerary easily by forwarding all your travel confirmation e-mails to TripIt- Automatically add confirmation e-mails if you use gmail, yahoo or outlook.com
- Editable, edit dates, add notes, photos and links to your itinerary to personalize it to your own needs
- Available on all devices (smartphone, tablet, computer)
- Offline mode
- Book with your favorite provider. TripIt doesn’t require you to use their travel search engine and works with whatever site you choose to book with
- Sync with your other calendars (Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple iCal)
TripIt Pro
- All TripIt Regular Features
- Detailed directions, maps and weather information, all relating to the information automatically sent to TripIt (e.g directions form the car pick up location to hotel – both of which are automatically gleaned from the e-mails you forward)
- Real time alerts (e.g, you’ll be notified if your flight is cancelled or delayed). You’ll also be shown alternative flights if this is the case and be able to book/change your flight instantly
- Seat alerts. Do you always like to be sitting in the first row or an exit row? Â You’ll be notified whenever a seat you request becomes available
- Point Tracker. This allows you to track 120+ different loyalty programs (hotels, car rental and airlines)
- Flight Refunds: Be notified whenever you should receive a refund due to the price of a flight going down.
- Share your itinerary with friends and family. Ability to share your itinerary with people you want (e.g, friend picking you up from the airport? Send them the itinerary and they’ll be alerted to changes to your arrival time as well)
- VIP Benefits: Get Hertz Club Gold and a Regus BusinessWorld Preferred Membership.
Alternatives To TripIt
- Point Tracker: A lot of places offer the ability to track your points and miles with multiple different loyalty programs. Award Wallet & Points.com are the most well known.
- Seat Alert Notifications: ExpertFlyer allows you to get these notifications for free (this is actually better than TripIt Pro as it’ll tell you which are the best seats and why for every different type of aeroplane).
- Flight Refunds: Yapta also does this and does it for free, which makes it a great alternative.
Our Verdict
TripIt is a useful application, you can get most of the features for free from other providers but it’s nice to be able to have all of the features under one roof. Unless you’re travelling often for work, the free version + additional apps are probably going to be enough and it won’t be worth paying the $49 yearly fee. For those travelling regularly without a travel agent I could see this being a god send.
My favorite parts of this application are the seat alerts (I like to sit in an aisle seat for short flights and window seat for international flights. Having an exit row isn’t a big deal for me as I’m only 5’7″ but for the taller out there this will be even more valuable), fortunately you can use ExpertFlyer for free to get this functionality.
Another feature that I love is the flight refund one, most travel websites will automatically notify you of price changes if you opt into their newsletters but you often get a lot of useless e-mails as well. Thankfully Yapta also offers this functionality for free.
Even though I travel regularly for work I don’t have a TripIt Pro subscription. I personally just don’t find enough value when there are free tools out there – I also don’t really need to worry about flight refunds as that’s all done through our work travel agent. Those with the Barclay Arrival card also receive the pro version for free and whilst I wouldn’t value it at as a $49 bonus, it’s still a nice addition and something I’d use if I was given it for free.
What are your thoughts? Do you use TripIt or TripIt pro? Would you recommend it? Let us know in the comments.
