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Showing posts with label Travel Apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel Apps. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Hilton And Uber Expand Partnership, Unveil App Integration For Simplified Travel
Friday, March 18, 2016
How to Get Into Any Airport Lounge
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Courtesy Etihad Airways
The Etihad Airways lounge at New York's J.F.K. Airport.
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These apps and more will help you score VIP treatment, even if you're flying economy.
If you fly economy, or only travel once or twice a year, I bet you’ve seen the signs for VIP airport lounges and automatically ruled yourself out. But guess what? It doesn’t matter. You’re in. Seriously. Even coach passengers can escape the chaos, crying, and hustle of the terminal for the wonderment of unlimited cocktails, free Wi-Fi, comfy couches, and decent food with just the tap of a button. You guessed it, there are apps for that—and yes, they’re really easy to use.
LOUNGEBUDDY
It doesn’t matter what cabin you’re flying in. If you find yourself trying to pry open lounge doors with your eyes during a cancelled flight or extended layover, or want to book a lounge in advance, LoungeBuddy will get it done. The free app allows you to purchase instant access at hundreds of airports worldwide, without any annoying membership cards, up front fees, or fuss.
PRIORITY PASS
Once you’re hooked on airport lounges, you’ll find Priority Pass to be a great deal. The membership-based app features access to over 850 lounges, which you can access just by pulling up your mobile membership card on your phone. You’ll pay $99 bucks to get started and just $29 per visit after that. For those traveling more than five times a year, the app also features an enhanced membership option at $249 for the year, which includes 10 visits, effectively giving you access for $24 a pop. That's an excellent value considering what you’ll find inside.
YOUR CREDIT CARD
The plastic already sitting in your wallet may be the golden ticket to all things that don’t suck in an airport. American Express has a growing network of Centurion Lounges, which are among the best in the U.S. and around the world, and anyone with an Amex card can get in for $50 (note: it's free for Platinum cardholders). Additionally, Citi and Chase both feature credit cards that come with complimentary Priority Pass membership: the Citi Prestige card and the Chase Ritz Carlton card. Both offer unlimited free access, saving you from waiting in the terminal.
www.cntraveler.com
www.cntraveler.com
Monday, March 7, 2016
Now You Can Renew Your Passport With An App
The demand for passport renewals has spiked because the State Department has stopped adding visa pages to U.S. passports. (iStock)
Forget schlepping to the post office or the DMV. If you have a smartphone, an envelope and a credit card, you can now renew your passport at home.
Ten years after the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) required Americans traveling to Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda to carry U.S. passports, the ItsEasy Passport Renewal & Photo app has arrived just in time for tens of millions of Americans whose passports will soon expire. The app, a free download, was released this month for iPhones and will soon be available for Android phones.
Related Image
The ItsEasy app guides customers through the passport renewal process, starting with determining whether the expired passport is actually renewable. (ItsEasy)
“Nearly 10 years after implementation of the WHTI and the associated surge of passport applications, the Bureau of Consular Affairs is preparing for an anticipated surge as those applicants renew their passports,” said William Cocks, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. “We expect increased passport applications to continue through 2018.”
Frequent flyers may need passport renewals, too, because the State Department has stopped adding visa pages to U.S. passports. Until this year, passport holders could pay to have 24-page visa inserts added when their passports were full.
The ItsEasy app guides customers through the passport renewal process, starting with determining whether the expired passport is actually renewable.
There are numerous reasons why a passport may not be renewable, said David Alwadish, CEO and president of the app’s developer, ItsEasy.com. “For example, the traveler may not have the most recent passport in his or her possession, or it may be damaged beyond what is acceptable to the Department of State. Or the most recent passport may have expired more than five years ago.
“In each of these cases, the customer would need to apply for a new passport rather than a renewal.”
The ItsEasy app provides guidelines for taking a passport photo with your smartphone, and a gauge to help ensure that faces are sized to the proper dimensions.
The app sends an email with a printable passport renewal form and a USPS Priority Mail shipping label to be affixed to a 9 x 12 envelope. The user fills out the renewal form, puts it in the envelope with his most recent passport and then drops it in any mailbox.
The State Department charges $110 to renew a passport within the standard time frame (about six weeks, according to Cocks), and $170 for an expedited one. There’s an additional service fee of $29.95 if you use the ItsEasy app.
ItsEasy provides some nifty services for free, though. “If you submit your email address and your passport’s expiration date, we will send you a reminder nine months before your passport expires,” Alwadish said.
The app also has a panic button. “In the event that your passport is lost or stolen, we provide step-by-step instructions on what to do if you’re abroad or in the United States.”
Uncle Sam’s best advice for passport holders? Don’t wait until the last minute to renew.
“Applying early will allow you to save the additional $60 expedite fee,” said Cocks. “If you have a valid passport, be sure to check its expiration date before you make travel reservations. Some countries will not let you enter if your passport will expire in fewer than six months.”
By Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, the family vacations expert at About.com.
Friday, December 25, 2015
12 Travel Apps Worth Keeping In 2016
Recently I deleted dozens of travel apps from my iPhone. Many are great. They allowed me to research unfamiliar places, listen to audio tours and turn my photos into postcards. But travel is about tapping the world, not a screen, so I’m ending the year with an app purge. I’ve kept only what I use often. An app didn’t have to be new (most weren’t) to make the cut, but it had to make travel easier or significantly more enjoyable. Below are a dozen that have earned a spot on my smartphone heading into 2016.
LiveTrekker This French app is a dream for flâneurs who love to wander without a map and yet, later, long to see where they’ve been. The app logs how far you walk, but I’m hooked on the red line it draws up and down each street, and through every park and museum you visit. Before setting off, tap the “tracker” button and then “start.” When you’ve returned to your hotel hours later, you’ll have a detailed, zoomable map (the satellite version that allows you to see trees and landmarks is a favorite) of where you’ve walked that you can also view on a computer and share with friends. I’ve used LiveTrekker to see how much of a city I’ve explored, and to note the little streets I strolled down whose names I might otherwise have forgotten. Cost: free.
Bravolol This app brand puts basic phrases and vocabulary — “Thank you,” “How much?,” “A table for two, please” — at your fingertips. Each (in my case) English phrase is shown in the foreign language and sometimes as a transliteration, too. Even better: Tap a phrase, and the app speaks it aloud so you know how to pronounce it. There are a variety of languages available, including French, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. Cost: free for basic categories, and $4.99 for additional categories such as “driving” and “sightseeing.”
Duolingo If you want to begin studying a language but don’t have the time, money or inclination for classes, you can learn during your commute or waiting in line at the supermarket with this app, which turns language learning into a game of multiple choice questions, word matching quizzes and translation challenges. Answer correctly and, like a video game, you can proceed to the next category. Courses are available in languages including Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese. Cost: free.
Vurb One of the newer travel apps out there, Vurb allows you to access all your favorite workhorse apps in a single place. You can search for or discover destinations and events, and then do all the things you would normally do for an afternoon in a city — make a reservation on OpenTable (see below), buy movie tickets on Fandango, check out a location on Google Maps (below), request a car through Lyft or Uber (below), look at Yelp reviews or Foursquare tips, chat with your friends — all without closing Vurb and opening a half dozen other apps. (You give Vurb permission to open your various apps.) For instance, let’s say you opened Vurb and searched for an Italian restaurant. After you select one and tap on its virtual address and information card, you’ll see icons for popular apps like OpenTable, Google Maps, Safari and Uber. You can then tap one after another to quickly make a reservation, get directions and request a car without having to hunt for and open multiple apps. Cost: free.
Apple iBooks This is an often-overlooked native iPhone app. A virtual library of your own creation, it allows you to highlight favorite passages, add notes and tap a button to send yourself or someone else favorite quotes and passages from the digital books you’re reading. You can download a travel guide or take a bookshelf’s worth of classics with you to London. Poetry by Keats, Longfellow and Elizabeth Barrett Browning can be downloaded free. You can increase the font size, and an option to darken the pages is handy if you want to read in your hotel bed while your partner is sleeping. Cost: free (you pay for most books you download).
NOAA Radar Pro This weather app has more bells and whistles than anyone needs, but it’s also more accurate than other weather apps I’ve tried. It’s easy to scroll through hourly and weekly forecasts. You can customize the order in which you see forecasts for things like precipitation, wind, visibility and what the temperature feels like. And you can bookmark multiple places where you want to regularly check the weather. Cost: free for basic version; $1.99 for pro, which is ad-free and has seven-day forecasts (instead of three), severe-weather notifications and a hurricane tracker.
Google Maps and Google Translate Easy to use, with turn-by-turn voice navigation and clean lines, Google Maps is my first map stop. And now that there’s also offline navigation, you won’t incur roaming charges. Cost: free. Google Translate can be used in various ways. For example, you can tap the camera icon on your phone and then hold it up to a menu and see a translation. You can get translations of words that you speak, type or draw on your smartphone screen with your finger. The app is also capable of real-time translation while two people converse. I try to muddle through in a foreign language as much as possible, but it’s comforting to know that in a pinch I’ve got a translator in my pocket. Cost: free.
XE Currency For some people, currency conversion is a breeze. For the rest of us, there are apps. This one updates in real time, can display multiple currencies simultaneously, and the price is right. Cost: free (a pro version for $2.29 allows you to monitor more currencies).
TripIt This travel organizer allows members to forward their various hotel, flight, car rental, concert and restaurant confirmation email to a single address and in return receive a digital itinerary. I’m even more impressed with the app’s ability to alert me to gate changes before an airline’s app. Cost: free; $49 a year for the pro version that includes flight, seat and fare refund alerts and allows you to keep track of your rewards points and miles.
OpenTable This popular app and reward program lets you browse restaurants both casual and costly, and then book with a few taps. Users earn points for dining (a typical reservation earns 100 points), which can then be exchanged for discounts at participating restaurants or an Amazon gift card. For example, 2,000 points gets you $20 toward a meal or a $10 Amazon card. This can add up, especially if you book regularly, even when you know your favorite local joint isn’t crowded. Cost: free.
Uber Love or hate the company, this app is indispensable on rainy days and late nights when mass transit is inconvenient and there isn’t a cab in sight. In cities like Los Angeles, it’s made doing without a rental car an option. And of course you don’t have to worry about having enough cash on hand because its linked to your credit card. Cost: free.
Monday, December 21, 2015
New Travel App May Offer Big Savings On Air Travel By Creating An Online Marketplace To Allow Swapping Seats
Travelers Can Also Use App to Get a Better Seat
Seateroo, launching in January 2016, will create an online market where ticketed air travelers can swap
seats in exchange for electronic payment. With this two-sided market, buyers are unhappy with their seat
location and are willing to pay to swap for a desired seat. Sellers, in return for being paid, are willing to
swap for a less desired seat.
Based upon a survey by Seateroo, a significant portion of air travelers are willing to either pay or be paid
to swap seats. For example, on flights of at least 3.5 hours, 39% are willing to pay to swap from a middle
seat to an aisle seat, while 44% are willing to pay to swap from an economy seat to a premium seat.
In addition, the Seateroo survey revealed that air travelers will pay significant amounts to swap for a
better seat. To swap out of a middle seat, 26% would pay at least $50. To swap from an economy to
a premium seat, 18% would pay at least $100. At an average domestic roundtrip flight cost of $379,
business travelers using Seateroo to swap for a less desired seat for one or both flights could significantly
reduce their travel costs.
In addition, business travelers frequently book air travel at the last minute. For such travelers, if they
are willing to pay to do so, Seateroo could be used to get a better seat.
"Travel managers are tasked with reducing travel costs and improving traveler satisfaction." said
Brad Pursel, Founder and President of Seateroo. "After a trip has been booked, Seateroo can be
used to either reduce travel costs or enhance traveler satisfaction. For businesses that share travel
savings with its employees, it's a win-win."
About Seateroo: Launching in January 2016, the Seateroo app will bring the sharing economy to air
travel by creating an online market where ticketed passengers can swap seats. For more information
on Seateroo or the survey, visit www.seateroo.com.
Friday, November 27, 2015
HotelTonight Launches 'Tonight +1' Feature For Discounted Last-Minute Stays
Mobile hotel booking app HotelTonight has launched a brand new feature that will allow users to add a discounted night to their stay at the last minute with a few taps of their phone screen.
Tonight +1 will provide travelers with the option of adding another night to their stay at a significant discount in some cases.
The new feature will automatically activate at check-out for same-day, one-night bookings. Tonight +1 will display the second night's discounted rate and then it's up to the user to add the night. This way, in case the unexpected occurs, users can check out later without consequence.
Tonight +1 will also benefit participating hotels as it will allow them to fill unused rooms.
With holiday travel ramping up, the feature arrives just in time for travelers interested in extending their stays for potential Black Friday shopping and family-related events.
Even if guests don't utilize the extra night, they can sleep in past check-out without worry and take their time getting ready to hit the road.
"Our mission is to encourage spontaneity, and Tonight +1 helps us deliver on this in a new way by giving people the opportunity to extend their experiences while getting really great deals," HotelTonight Co-Founder and CEO Sam Shank said in a statement. "It's important that we continue to find unique ways to keep our customer experience fresh and to help our hotel partners preserve brand loyalty."
"With Tonight +1 we've done both, helping turn one-night guests into two-night guests and filling rooms while doubling down on spontaneity."
HotelTonight said users will find "significant discounts" on second nights this holiday season.
By PATRICK CLARKE, www.travelpulse.com
Saturday, November 14, 2015
In Case Of Travel Emergency, Download These Apps
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| Fuse |
There's only so much you can plan for on vacation. For the rest, be it pollen counts, heat exhaustion, or a coup, you’ll have to rely on luck—but these four apps just might help, too.
Sure, the best travel stories tend to have an element of calamity to them, but we’re betting most travelers would rather avoid any mishaps if given the chance. But there’s only so much you can plan for. If a travel emergency comes up, you’ll want backup—and these apps provide it, in the form of helpful tips, travel warnings, and illness alerts. You may not be able to avoid an issue, but you’ll at least be better-informed.
Allergy Alert, free
For travelers plagued by allergies, Pollen.com's mobile app is a must-have. The app details both weather and allergy forecasts, noting the levels of specific types of pollen found in your locale so you can prep for the day ahead (or just avoid going outdoors). For those hoping to narrow down the cause of their misery, there's also a built-in diary (with downloadable data) that tracks your symptoms and pollen count, as well as photos and descriptions to help you spot allergens in the wild.
Smart Traveler, free
If you can get past the creep factor of installing a State Department-produced app, Smart Traveler is an essential tool for travel into less stable regions. Sort of like an abridged version of the CIA's World Fact Book, it has a dossier on every country around the globe, as well as up-to-the-minute travel warning, be they political uprisings or natural disasters. Especially handy is the inclusion of STEP, which lets travelers e-register with their local U.S. embassy or consulate when abroad for an added layer of safety, and to receive alerts by email. And in case you're worried about snoops of the foreign or homegrown variety, the app doesn't save personal data or keep track of your searches.
Courtesy Sickweather
Sickweather, free
For those looking to inoculate their vacation against the dread summer cold, there’s Sickweather, which uses data from social networks to record and map outbreaks of about two dozen ailments, from common allergies to serious communicable illnesses. Using GPS, it alerts you to nearby threats via a daily roundup, and uses color coding to reflect how recent a particular outbreak may be. It may seem tailor-made for hypochondriacs, but ask anyone who's ever spent quality time with a norovirus—we bet they’d firmly disagree.
WikiHow, Free
The Red Cross's First Aid app is comforting but lacks how-to steps for dealing with most medical emergencies. That’s where the crowd-sourced wisdom of WikiHow's expansive know-it-all comes in. Click on the menu and scroll to Survival Kit, select among the 11 categories of potential situations—First Aid, Home Emergencies, Wilderness Survival, and so on—and then scroll through dozens and dozens of articles detailing specific steps for virtually any situation one might encounter. Granted, a painstakingly detailed 20-step CPR lesson for choking infants might be a tough read in the moment, but the info is all there for you to research beforehand, and covers a wide swath of issues.
www.cntraveler.com
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
App Helps Travelers Stay Informed And Prepared Amidst Rising Threats
As threats to global travelers increase in countries throughout the world, Global Rescue has developed an app to help keep travelers safe and support enterprises in meeting their legal Duty of Care responsibilities. The Global Rescue app puts critical medical, security and other essential real-time travel intelligence at travelers' fingertips. In an emergency, the app also puts travelers in immediate contact with Global Rescue's medical and security teams which are comprised of the paramedics, physicians and military special operations veterans who staff the company's global operations centers.
"The need for real-time travel intelligence and crisis response services has never been greater," said Dan Richards, CEO and founder of Global Rescue. "To stay safe while traveling abroad, travelers must have immediate access to critical information and a system that can be tailored to efficiently deliver that information. Mobile applications have also become an important asset for enterprises seeking to meet their Duty of Care responsibilities and our new app provides a combination of functionality and services currently unavailable anywhere else in the marketplace.
Travelers are increasingly relying on mobile devices for updates during their travels. According to a recent survey by TripAdvisor, more than 87% of the 30,000 people surveyed reported using a smart phone while on their trips.
While many organizations recommend that travelers download applications that provide personal travel details such as airline or hotel booking applications, many travelers lack immediate access to travel intelligence information or communication capabilities that may be life-saving in the event of a medical or security emergency.
Global Rescue mobile app features include:
Destination Reports – Detailed information on over 200 countries, including: health and security risk assessments, entry and exit requirements, exchange rates, important phone numbers, weather conditions and other essential information. Travelers can access recent regional events, compiled by Global Rescue's in-house intelligence analysts.
Real-time Alerts –Travelers can review real-time alerts delivering critical information on locations of interest. Global Rescue enterprise clients can configure their alerts by event severity, category and destination and immediately know which travelers are impacted.
Status and Location Updates –Travelers are able to indicate that they're okay or in need of assistance by "checking-in" by using their mobile device to transmit their message with their GPS coordinates to Global Rescue's operations centers and those they designate.
In-App Text Messaging – Secure two-way text messaging with Global Rescue's operations professionals who are standing by 24/7 to answer travelers' questions.
Status and Location Updates –Travelers are able to indicate that they're okay or in need of assistance by "checking-in" by using their mobile device to transmit their message with their GPS coordinates to Global Rescue's operations centers and those they designate.
In-App Text Messaging – Secure two-way text messaging with Global Rescue's operations professionals who are standing by 24/7 to answer travelers' questions.
Emergency Notification – A one-touch emergency button that immediately alerts Global Rescue's operations teams that a traveler is in distress with the GPS coordinates of the traveler's location.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Paris Launches 'Yes I Speak Touriste' App
PARIS, France - A new mobile app has been launched to help tourists visiting Paris find areas of the French capital where their native tongue will be understood.
'Yes I speak touriste' has been launched to help foreigners struggling with their French find some respite.
The app provides users with an interactive map showing locations like restaurants and hotels where their respective language is spoken.
Users select their preferred language and locations appear where they can find fellow Mandarin, Arabic and English speakers.
Selecting Mandarin, for example, and around 20 addresses pop up, including a pharmacy.
The French capital's chamber of commerce released the app, which is available in nine languages, at the start of the peak summer tourism season.
Along with the app, there is a paper guide and a website with a list of locations compiled by the chamber of commerce and the regional tourism board.
The website, called 'Do you speak touriste?' also offers businesses personality profiles for different nationalities.
According to the profiles, Russian tourists are 'traditional and passionate', and Chinese are 'serial shoppers and connected'.
Now, the service has moved to mobile, and is available free of charge for Android and iOS phones.
Paris consistently ranks as the most visited city in the world, with 46 million visitors - 58 per cent French and 42 per cent international - each year, according to the chamber of commerce.
The organization said 'the perception of the destination by tourists is positive, with a satisfaction level of 94 per cent in 2014'.
Not all tourists are satisfied, though. Japanese reported 58 percent satisfaction, and Chinese 54 percent - with security an issue.
'Cultivating hospitality shows the world that each visitor is welcomed. It also encourages jobs and growth,' the statement said.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Muslim Visitors To Thailand Get Their Own App
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has launched its first App designed specifically for the growing number of Muslim visitors to find their way around the country.
The App for iOS and Android is both an online and offline guidebook that will help Muslim visitors find mosques, halal restaurants and hotels, shopping centres with prayer rooms, and other facilities of cultural importance to Muslim travellers.
A critical component of the newly-launched strategy to position as a Muslim friendly destination, the App is initially in English and Thai but will be expanded to include Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia later. It also has a very important search and navigation feature to help quickly locate specific places and estimate the time it will take to get there from a users’ current location.
It was developed with the support of the Halal Science Centre of Chulalongkorn University, the Foundation of the Islamic Centre of Thailand, Halal Standards Institute of Thailand and the Tourism Council of Thailand.
Mrs. Juthaporn Rerngronasa, Acting Governor, TAT, said, “We are especially happy to launch this App in the holy month of Ramadan. We hope it will be useful to the many Muslim visitors from Indonesia and Malaysia who may chose to visit Thailand during the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr (Hari Raya) holidays at the end of the month.”
The Muslim-friendly destination strategy is primarily aimed at the 240 million-strong Islamic populations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, which are expected to grow strongly after the ASEAN integration process advances from 2016 onwards.
Mrs Juthaporn said, “The Muslim population worldwide is about 1.6 billion, representing 23 percent of the total global population and, still, has plenty of room to grow. Thailand has great potential to serve this market. Today, we are seeing a whole new generation of young Thai-Muslims emerging nationwide, and it is very important for them to seek promising opportunities in the tourism sector.”
She noted that Thailand is already the top destination for Middle East travellers in Asia. Amongst the non-Muslim countries, Thailand is ranked second in the world by the Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) 2015.
Mrs Juthaporn said, “We believe this is because we have the required range of products and services for Muslim travellers. We are already seeing many of our shopping complexes providing facilities for Muslim prayers. Halal food is also becoming commonplace. We are also seeing increasing investor interest in developing halal-tourism hotels. All this is good for us because it will create jobs for our emerging younger generation and promote national inclusiveness and integration.”
TAT has also produced a number of guidebooks and brochures to help Muslim visitors; such as, “Halal Check-in Thailand (which contains a list of halal-certified restaurants) and Islamic Attractions in
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