New Marriott smartphone apps for iPhone/iPad, BlackBerry, Android

Marriott has fleshed out its suite of hotel apps for iPhone/iPad, Android and Blackberry, which let business travellers find hotels, make reservations, check Rewards points and manage upcoming bookings.

It's great to see a hotel focussing on the BlackBerry and Android market in addition to iPhones, since many business travellers use RIM or Google devices at work.

Marriott's apps let you find hotels based on a city search or a GPS location, and select whether you want to narrow down the results by brand.

You'll also be able to redeem Marriott Rewards points and use your corporate discount code if you have one. Here's what that looks like on an iPhone:

Results will appear by distance from your location (or the city you searched for), but can also be displayed by city, price or brand. This is what the BlackBerry version shows you:

From that list, you can find out more about specific hotels before booking, including the address and phone number, plus what's nearby.

There's also a city guide if you tap through, although the user interface doens't make that abundantly clear on any of the platforms, including iOS:

If you're a Marriott Rewards member, you'll be able to check your balance, find your account number, see your frequent guest status in the program at a glance, and find a handy one-click link to the Rewards helpdesk. Here's how that works on Android devices:

All in all, it's a useful app to have tucked away on your phone, especially if you travel enough to occasionally need a last-minute hotel room.

At a relatively small size of under 2MB (except on iOS, where it's a fairly sizeable 15MB), it'll find a place in the Travel app section of our smartphones.

Download links:

• BlackBerry App World
• Android Market
• iTunes Australia
• iTunes USA

John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.