If you’re a “wired” guy or gal like me who loves gadgets, regularly plunks down with your laptop to surf the web for information, and travels a bit, you probably do most if not all of your travel arrangements online. I thought I’d offer up a few travel websites that I’ve found most useful in making the most of my travel experiences.
If you collect miles like some people collect baseball cards, then you need to read flyertalk. You’ll find a collection of pretty well-versed people offering tips, tricks and advice on collecting miles in your favorite frequent flyer program. In addition to miles, you’ll find helpful information on discounted fares, dining tips, hotel points programs and even travel technology and security.
One of the more useful web tools that I’ve found, flightstats.com offers a wealth of information on airline and airport operational performance in an understandable format. Check it out! I’ve found their flight notification service to be generally as reliable (if not more so) than the airlines’ own services.
http://www.roadwarrior.orbitz.com/
A different “front end” to Orbitz’ fantastic website, the roadwarrior site offers useful tips for the business traveler and for that matter, any traveler.
You’ll find articles by Joe Brancatelli on the Orbitz roadwarrior site, but Joe also has his own site which I’ve been reading for years. In fact, I was reading Joe’s insight and opinion well before I left the airline business. I enjoyed looking at things from the perspective of a customer, and reading Joe was one way I did that.
http://www.americanexpress.com/travel
Opinions vary on this, but I am a big fan of the American Express card. Amex offers a full service travel agency, and their website has some useful information for travelers on it as well. If you book travel with Amex online, the booking engine might look familiar to you if you’ve ever used Travelocity.
OK, it’s an awfully governmental looking website….probably because it belongs to the government. However, if you are into looking at raw data on anything transportation related, this site is for you. One portion of the site, http://www.bts.dot.gov/programs/airline_information/airline_ontime_statistics/ is totally dedicated to ontime performance of flights.
