Anyone who has traveled in the last year probably has a horror story. There are many canceled flights. Airline customers Wait times for his service can be hours. In some places, the cost of car rentals and plane tickets is astronomical.
Many of the economic problems brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as soaring gas prices and burnout-related retirements, have hit the travel industry in the same way people are resuming travel or leaving home for vacations. has been particularly hard hit.
So, nearly three years into the Covid-19 outbreak, travelers must adopt a changed approach to vacation planning. That’s where these tech hacks come in. When the virus was deadlier, travel planning mostly involved doing online research to see where we were allowed to go and what we needed. Technology can now be used to make travel less chaotic and more comfortable, helping to avoid customer service snafus.
The most important time-saving tech travel tip right now is to avoid apps and websites that book through third parties, even if it saves you money. In that case, the middleman is another party to deal with and can waste even more time.
“If you book through a travel agency, you are asking for trouble,” he said. point guy blog. “Go in person. The more people in the way, the more complicated things get.”
The most useful tech to make travel more comfortable, like an app that monitors flight changes and finds the best seats, which travel professionals and I use during this “new normal” phase of the pandemic. Here are some tools.
Travel hacks for smoother, cheaper flights
In times of extremely high inflation when everyone is trying to save money, it is still possible to win good money on plane tickets without having to book through a third party agency. Using a service that tracks the cost of your company’s airline tickets and sets alerts for price drops.
Kelly’s tools of choice for getting cheap airfare are: google flightsUse this web tool to enter your travel dates and destinations, toggle the option on, track prices, and receive email updates as soon as airfares plummet. Then buy your ticket directly from the airline.
The next step is to secure the best cheap seats to maximize your comfort on board. for that purpose, seat guruis a web tool that allows travelers to enter a flight number to see detailed aircraft seating charts. It emphasizes more detailed information than the basic airline diagrams show, such as seats with extra legroom or limited recline or overhead storage space.
The final step after booking is to monitor the status of your flight. This is an important step as cancellations and delays have become very common. Web tools such as FlightAware and Flightradar24 provide up-to-date information on the exact location of aircraft and insight into airline performance regarding on-time arrivals and delays.
Bonus Tip: The lounge can get really busy these days, so Kelly uses the app when she arrives at the airport. lounge buddy to see what he could easily slip into.
Technology for organization
In the early stages of the pandemic, travelers had to peruse travel and tourism websites to learn about coronavirus restrictions and destination requirements.
Henry Harteveldt, founder of San Francisco-based travel analytics firm Atmosphere Research Group, JoinSherpa.com, a web tool that pulls out departure and return travel requirements. For example, if you fly from San Francisco to Chile, the site will load up with all the health and quarantine requirements to enter the country, as well as a list of the documents you’ll need to return to the United States.
Juggling travel documents and itineraries is still a hassle as you have to carry around more information than before. I use several tools to organize my itinerary and health documents.
My favorite for organizing itineraries is TripItYou can scan your inbox for itineraries, hotel reservations, and car rental reservations and combine that information into an all-in-one itinerary that appears as a neat timeline.
Here’s how TripIt fits into my plans. I have an email account dedicated to my travel itinerary. After booking a flight, car rental, or hotel, forward the confirmation email to that email account. TripIt will then automatically scan that inbox and update your timeline.
When it comes to health paperwork, I always carry two digital vaccine records with me in case of confusion. The first is a digital QR code provided by the California Department of Public Health that I store in my phone’s wallet app. The other is a picture of the physical vaccine card. I save them in the Notes app so I can easily find them later.
package tracking
Luggage loss is skyrocketing due to understaffing at airports and a surge in demand for air travel. That’s why wireless trackers like Tile and Apple’s AirTag are especially useful. These are small beacons that you can slip inside your luggage, and if you lose your bag or suitcase, you can open the Tile or Find My apps on your smartphone to see the tracker’s approximate location on a map. I can.
Even if you don’t lose your luggage, you can rest assured with a tracker. Kelly said that on a recent trip through Europe, an airtag told him exactly where his bag was when he arrived in Paris.
yes hotel app
To manage your hotel reservations, be sure to download your hotel’s app, if one exists. This is especially important as many big brands now allow check-in via the app. The sooner you arrive, the sooner your room will be ready.
Do not skip this step. If you forget to check in and arrive hours late due to a delayed flight, the hotel may cancel your reservation, Kelly said.
