5 mobile apps at your fingertips for holiday travels
112.5 Million travelers left their home to visit family or vacation during the 2018 holiday break, a statistic reported by the American Automotive Association (AAA). Although the holiday season has already started, you still have time to make travel plans for the holidays. With the right mobile apps on your phone, you can be a more spontaneous traveler who seizes the deals of the moment and keeps traveling on budget during the holiday season.
Apps that will honor the travel procrastinator
Make your digital list and check it twice. You need apps that do the work for you and use artificial intelligence, dive deeply into databases in the spur of the moment and answer your questions: how do I get there the easiest way on my budget, and where will I stay? Let’s explore 5 holiday travels apps:
1) GasBuddy
Nine times out of ten, families choose to drive to their destination for the holiday celebrations, according to AAA. This massive movement of cars accounts for more than 10 percent of oil demand each year. The cost of gas may add an additional burden to the cost of the holiday season. GasBuddy is an iOS and Android compatible app available in the United States, Canada, and Australia that processes GPS data to locate nearby stations and compile real-time user-provided price tags on gas. The tool indicates the most affordable gas within proximity.
The GasBuddy company reports having 600,000 drivers that used the service to find the optimal place to refuel and saved $3.1M at the pump on over 73 million gallons of gas. It aims to further save a few cents more per gallon with the “Pay with GasBuddy” feature, a benefit arranged through their partnership with Wex. The app also enables access to ParWhiz, a functionality that enables booking a parking spot in advance in crowded locations.
2) Honey
Honey is a smart shopping assistant app that looks for savings while browsing sites for hotels, car rentals, or flights. Once downloaded, the honey app will pop up at checkout time and automatically apply the best discount it could find online. The company reports to have saved $8 million to its 17 million users and has identified more than $1 billion of discounts or coupons. Honey has also actively negotiated discounted deals with travel companies.
For instance, visitors to the website Choice Hotels see an announcement that Honey will apply a 25 percent discount at checkout. The tool unlocks additional discounts on websites such as Travelocity and Expedia.
3) Citymapper
If your destination is one of the large metropolitan areas, your best choice of urban transportation may not be renting a car. For instance, the Subway, Bus, or Uber may be a lot more efficient and cheaper than attempting to drive around New York City. Citymapper is the ultimate maze mapper for 40 urban areas and a free app available on iOS, Android and the web that draws the most efficient approach to get from point A to B using one or a mix of transportation means. The intuitive screen is designed for practical advice on the go.
It tracks accurate departure and arrival times of trains and buses. Plus, it alerts for delays and disruptions in specific routes. It may suggest a cab or biking in weather-tempered areas or may simply recommend walking. The user gets detailed instruction maps even if the device is offline. Some of the information available from the trips includes a tally of calories burned and the number of trees saved from choosing public transportation or walking. The real-time information will include recommendations for the best subway station to enter, or the metro car that is least crowded.
Estimated Time of Arrival gets calculated and can be shared with family members tracking your progress. Whether it’s visiting relatives or friends or exploring ta new location, the Citymapper app will help you get where you want to go.
4) Skyscanner
The Scottish Skyscanner app focuses on simplifying trip planning and lining up a door to door services. Since the acquisition of the company in 2016 by the Chinese Trip.com Group, this app serves 100 million users a month and provides services in 30 different languages. Skyscanner will give concise flight options to a traveler with a firm destination, while for the traveler who just wants to get out of town and not sure about a destination, the app will suggest destinations illustrated with photos along with the deals of the month.
From flights to cars to booking hotels, this app searches and presents the most affordable options and shows price maps based on calendar days. Additionally, you can book your desired flights, rooms, and cars through the app directly with no additional fees and save any desired flight times for future use.
5) Hotel Tonight
An adage goes “Life happens while you’re busy making plans;” this is certainly the case during the holidays. Weather, financial circumstances, personal obligations – there are many factors powerful enough to alter travel plans. Sometimes the unexpected event strands travelers to stay an extra night without a place reserved; this is where Hotel Tonight comes into play. The app allows users to book a room at many locations within a specified city, from high-class hotels to humble inns. An effective search engine allows you to search by location, attraction, and city.
As a bonus, the app even provides loyalty rewards giving special discounts other travel-goers don’t receive. So, when travel plans go awry or you want to extend your vacation, Hotel Tonight will find you a place to rest your head.
Wrapping Up
Traveling during the holidays has been an endeavor that used to require extensive planning. With these 5 apps, you will have at your fingertips virtual assistants anticipating, helping, and supporting users in real-time lining up empty flight seats, empty hotel rooms, and optimal A to B transportation as if you had planned your holiday trip several months in advance.
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