Travel tech: Tripit can now advise Australian airport gates

The popular online service Tripit can now advise you which gate to go to at the airport for your domestic Australian flights, it appears.

I was flying domestically a couple of days ago with Qantas when I received an email alert from Tripit with my flight's gate number assignment at Melbourne Airport.

As a previous user of Worldmate Gold, which seemed distinctly lacking in terms of its ability to provide updates on Australian flight changes, I was pretty happy to discover this!

If you're not familiar with Tripit, it's an online service which links up perfectly with apps for Android phones, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and other phones through the mobile website version.

When you set up the online service, you can give it access to your email account, which allows it to trawl through your incoming email for any new airline, hotel, or hire-car itinerary confirmation emails.

(If you're not comfortable with that privacy risk, you can also manually forward your itinerary confirmation emails to [email protected] for processing.)

Tripit automatically sucks the pertinent details out of the various itinerary formats issued by airlines, hotels and hire car companies, and puts it into a neat online database with your combined itinerary.

With the Tripit phone app, you can view your itinerary details including key info like arrival and departure time for flights (in local timezone format), booking confirmation numbers, and contact details for the travel providers.

You can also subscribe to an online iCal calendar feed, which allows all your trips to automatically appear in your desktop or online calendaring app, and your phone. (Personally, I use Google Calendar as my central calendar syncing point, and subscribe to the TripIt iCal feed there, which means it automatically appears in my BusyCal desktop calendar, and also on my iPhone and iPad through Google Sync).

Tripit is a huge help compared to rummaging through your bag for a printed itinerary, or waiting for glacially slow mobile email searches for itinerary confirmation emails.

It also provides maps of the locations you're visiting along with weather reports, all built into the itinerary list.

You can also keep track of your points balance with just about every airline in the world through the Tripit app.

The basic version of Tripit is free.

The version I use -- Tripit Pro -- costs US$49 per year, though you can get it free if you have a Samsung Galaxy handset (there's some sort of sponsorship by Samsung).

Tripit Pro monitors the status of your flights with the airlines and can advise of flight delays and other changes (including Australian airport gate changes, as I found out!)

Overall -- there really is no downside to Tripit. After spending 15 minutes setting it up, and taking a few trips where all your itinerary details are lined up in a neat list for you, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.

danwarne