Travel apps and sites abound, of course. But instead of creating a list of me too offerings with overwhelming interfaces that try to be everything for everyone, we thought we’d focus on a few hidden gems that do one thing, do it well, and save you time. in dealing with it. If you’re finally back in travel mode for work or play, give these a try.
Flying Penguin
If you’re looking for the best prices on flights, there’s no shortage of sites and services to help you do it.
However, the unique and free Flight Penguin, a free extension for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium-based web browsers, does things a little differently.
Instead of relying on agreements with airlines to ingest flight prices, which can be delayed, Flight Penguin pulls per-minute prices directly from other sites to ensure the most up-to-date results.
To input
You have a 30 minute layover, your connecting flight is on the other side of the airport and you are so hungry you could eat your own arm.
You can roll the dice and hope to find a random spot with a short enough line that happens to be in the way of your connecting gate. Or you can just use Grab.
Available at over 60 airports worldwide, the app lets you view restaurant menus as you walk back to the gate, order and pay for food from your phone, then stroll to the counter and grab it instead of waiting. in line.
As if that weren’t convenient enough, it’s directly integrated with expense report giant Concur, allowing you to transfer meal receipts into your expense report system without having to scan them first.
Daily use
What do you do when you’ve checked out of your hotel, you have a 9am meeting with the client, it lasts an hour and your flight isn’t until 8pm?
Forget killing an entire day at the airport or trying to sightsee when you have work to do. Instead, try renting a hotel room for the day without paying full price. This is the concept behind Dayuse, which discounts offers to fill hotel rooms during their daytime hours.
Instead of spending, say, $250 a night at the Westin, you can pay $100 to use a room between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Do a little work, maybe take a little nap, then head to the airport.
LoungeBuddy
OK, maybe you don’t want to spend an entire day in a hotel. For that, there’s LoungeBuddy, which you can use to purchase one-time access to airport lounges.
Bookable lounges are available in around 60 countries and access costs around $40 to $50, depending on the airport. For a comfy chair, plus free snacks and drinks, it’s a small price to pay for a long layover.
Comfortable
There is an endless supply of accommodation sites, but Cozycozy does a great job of bringing up rentals from Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and a handful of other sites.
The results are displayed on a helpful map with their prices, and you can filter by hotels, vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts, and a handful of other property types.
It’s a one-stop-shop for your next business trip or family vacation. Everything is under one roof, so to speak.
