Tripit Pro vs Google travel vs Spreadsheet

[Scrapr]

I'm in my 30 day free trial of Tripit pro. And since I have most of my details on Gmail it auto loads to Google travel. I have not set up a spreadsheet for our next trip but have in the past.

Have a 3 week trip to London/Strasbourg & Paris. So Flights/EuroStar/TGV plus hotels/Air BNB. Not terribly difficult to track. Most confirmations come via Gmail & I sort them into folders. I could access anything fairly quickly.


Tripit has you fwd your email confirmation then scrapes the email & populates a segment.

anyone have a preference? I still have a few weeks to pull the plug & only use the free version of Tripit (Pro)

 

[rodi]

You can set up tripit to poll your email and find the stuff (vs having it manually forward.) but that involves sharing your password with tripit (scary)

I've used tripit for years. I've recently started looking at google trips.

For larger trips I've also done a spreadsheet. The last spreadsheet was for our 2015 9 week, 8 countries, 11 cities trip by train/ferry. Lots of details to track.

Pros of spreadsheet is you can also set up a sheet to just track money spent - as you plan, pay deposits, pay balances, etc.

I'll be following this thread to see what others think.

 

[clobber]

Google Travel works for me. I have added it to my home screen from the Android Chrome browser - so it pretty much works like any app.

I do like TripIt, but forwarding emails is a pain.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

I think it depends on the level of detail you want and how complex the trip is.

While I still use the free version of TripIt because I find it easy to just forward the confirmation emails, it's not my main trip planner tool. I use it for quick reference and historical views. One issue we run into is that we regularly book non-chain hotels which TripIt has trouble scraping key info from their confirmation emails. So we would have to manually enter the info anyways. I also find it has trouble aggregating multiple legs of a complex itinerary into a single trip.

I mainly use a google sheets template with a bunch of tabs to capture the info I know I want to see. Sample tabs include: Budget/spend, transportation info, accommodation info, daily activity planner, etc. I also save emails about the trip in a specific Gmail folder which is handy for confirmation emails with QR codes, etc.

TripIt doesn't necessary capture hotel stuff like did my reservation include breakfast, did I book the hotel directly or off a third party site, did I prepay the hotel, which cc did I use, latest cancellation date, did I book it or the missus, does it have a shuttle, etc.

A spreadsheet is kind of overkill for simple trips but I'm used to my template.

 

[Scuba]

For our Greece trip, we used Travefy. It was a great tool but not sure it’s still available for people who aren’t travel agents.

 

[OldShooter]

IMO it depends on what problem you are trying to solve. For us, I want all of the trip information, organized one tab/sheet per day, in a Day-Timer type (5.5 x 4.25 half-sheet, seven hole) sized binder. Lots of options for those binders beyond the expensive Day-Timer one.

I have a blank Excel template set up with one sheet per day. In a copy of the template, I paste flight, car, and hotel information as the emails come in. If we're working with an arranger I'll paste their daily itineraries. I then use FinePrint (https://fineprint.com/) to print the pages half size, punch them and put them in the book. Other information pertinent to a specific day gets punched and inserted after the master sheet for the day. The book also gets copies of health care info, copies of passports, vaccination records, etc. -- basically anything that might come in handy.

I also back up virtually all information into EverNote and set up offline access on our tablets, though I don't remember ever having to use this. I've been paying $35/year, but I see higher pricing on their site today so I'm not sure I'll continue.

In theory Evernote could do the whole thing but their clumsy and limited folder organization requires similarly clumsy workarounds. Too bad.

 

[brett]

We travel frequently. Longest was seven months. Now...we do two extended international trips of 2-3 months each.

We keep a reservation file on our ipads. For airlines etc we keep a hard copy note or the locator number or reservation number. Most of our travel is spontaneous so we do not keep that much. We do not keep spreadsheets. Had enough of that in my working life. We gave up traveling with a folder or lots of paper when we switched to ipad minis.

How much we spend? Easy for us. Just add up the charges on our no FX fee credit cards plus any cash withdrawals plus how much cash money we started with (sometimes $1500-2000 for our snowbird trips to SE Asia). I can add up the total spent on a 2-3 month trip in about five minutes flat.

 

[Scrapr]

IMO it depends on what problem you are trying to solve. For us, I want all of the trip information, organized one tab/sheet per day, in a Day-Timer type (5.5 x 4.25 half-sheet, seven hole) sized binder. Lots of options for those binders beyond the expensive Day-Timer one.

I have a blank Excel template set up with one sheet per day. In a copy of the template, I paste flight, car, and hotel information as the emails come in. If we're working with an arranger I'll paste their daily itineraries. I then use FinePrint (https://fineprint.com/) to print the pages half size, punch them and put them in the book. Other information pertinent to a specific day gets punched and inserted after the master sheet for the day. The book also gets copies of health care info, copies of passports, vaccination records, etc. -- basically anything that might come in handy.

LOL...So we are trying Google Travel, Tripit & also hard paper copies. So i think this is belt, suspenders & tool belt.

 

[explanade]

I forward emails to TripIt and Kayak My Trips. I do not let it look inside my email.

Kayak will send me alerts or SMS for things like flights, flight status.

I get free TripIt Pro but it's no different than what Kayak provides. I would need pay for it.

I prefer the formatting of TripIt for itineraries. I put in not just hotel and plane reservations but notes on restaurants, attractions, activities as manual notes.

It's basically a way to distill all the travel research and planning I do into an itinerary or diary format.

Then I use those itineraries during the trip, in my iPhone and iPad, loaded as PDFs in the Books app. I will also use the itineraries if I ever re-visit a destination, to use the previous research. Often there are things I don't see or do because of weather or whatever.

I used to print these itineraries out but they are usually a dozen pages or more for 2 week trips. So I just view them on the devices.

I never used Google Travel, TripIt and Kayak cover me for now, though if they change print formatting that may force me to look elsewhere.

Use a lot of Google Maps, to favorite destinations, like even parking near a destination, so that I can bring it up instantly when driving and use navigation.

I use Numbers spread sheet to build out itineraries, like how many days at each base, then figure out my dates to buy airline tickets and make hotel reservations.

 

[Luvtoride]

How do you get TripIt Pro for free? I used to pay for it but didn’t feel the additional features were worth the price.

I use TripIt basic and it’s fine for building itineraries and sharing my travel plans.

 

[explanade]

They give it to you for trips to try to get you to subscribe.

There’s nothing I want from it.

 

[Scrapr]

How do you get TripIt Pro for free? I used to pay for it but didn’t feel the additional features were worth the price.

I use TripIt basic and it’s fine for building itineraries and sharing my travel plans.

There is a 30 day free trial. I cancelled after a couple weeks.The kicker for me was one of me train trips not loading correctly. So I had to fwd it. And it still wouldn't upload. So I need to enter that info. My thinking is if I have to do it by hand I'm going to use the free version. Probably works for high volume travelers

 

[explanade]

Kayak My Trips does better scraping data, especially from non-chain hotels. Also does better even in French.

Again, I prefer the printing formatting of TripIt though, for now.