Tech Tip - TripCase is Sunsetting. Try TripIt or Tripsy Instead

If you are in a traveling role for work, or if you just happen to travel a lot, you know that having a single place to keep your travel information and itineraries can be a very helpful tool. This can be especially true if you travel via air and need to always have the most up to date information about flight schedules and changes at your fingertips. A few years ago I covered my application of choice, Trip Case. It was a good tool and certainly kept all the information I needed. Over the years, more than once it alerted me to flight delays or changes before the airline's text or application pushed the notification. That becomes very helpful if you need to make a change to a flight or if a cancellation is involved; the sooner you know, the sooner you can get ahead of everyone else in finding replacement flights. However, Trip Case recently announced that they were sunsetting their application and after April 1st would no longer be available for users. That leaves many people without an itinerary aggregator.

There are some good options out there. Since I am on the hunt for a new application to help manage my travel information, for both business and pleasure, I figured I would share some of my initial findings and learnings. For the purposes of this article, I am going to primarily cover two applications that seem to be most like TripCase.

I was somewhat surprised to see that there are not many options in this space. Perhaps it has just become easy enough to track everything in the direct applications. After all, I do maintain most major US carrier apps on my phone. Same with hotels–though I almost always stay in a Marriott property, I do keep Hyatt and Hilton apps on my phone in case I need to use one of the other brands. Even with those, I used TripCase as a place to keep everything together, plus it was easier to share all my travel information with my family. In fact, everyone in my family used it, so we could see where any of us may be going at any point. It is certainly not an everyday app, but it was helpful. I want to be able to replace that functionality.

TripIt and Tripsy are the two main applications now dedicated to managing and sharing itineraries. TripIt has been around for quite some time. It was one of the first applications I used, even before TripCase. Tripsy is a relative newcomer.

TripIt

TripIt was launched in 2006 as a website and then as an application for the iPhone in 2009. It was one of the pioneer apps for travel tracking. In 2011 it was acquired by Concur, a major travel company. Since then, SAP purchased Concur. One nice thing about TripIt is the integration you get with anything booked through Concur. Many large companies use Concur for all their travel management, so this can be a very helpful integration. I have experienced this as well. When I used TripIt and had Concur with the Company I worked for, all my itineraries were automatically updated in the application. It saved the trouble of having to forward travel emails to the application to aggregate. There are other ways to automate getting your itineraries from your inbox to the applications, so that is not an absolutely critical feature of TripIt, but certainly nice to have.

Upgrading to TripIt Pro

The $50 question ($50/year actually) is whether it is worth it to upgrade to the Pro version of the application? Below is a comparison from the website at the time of this writing. From that, some key value-added features include the flight alerts and lower fare tracking. The flight alerts and ability to make adjustments if flights get delayed or cancelled are extremely helpful for frequent travelers. The low fare alerts can be helpful, especially for small businesses and personal travel. This is a great way to get value from the app immediately. One fare up could easily pay for the annual cost of the Pro version. There is also available tracking for your loyalty programs, better seat finder/alerts, and check-in reminders. While not critical in nature, all of those are nice to have features that the regular traveler can benefit from.

Tripsy

Tripsy is the ‘prettier’ of the two apps in my opinion. It looks and feels modern. That doesn’t necessarily make it any better at what it does. Tripsy looks to be serving a slightly different market than TripIt. Where TripIt is a travel itinerary management tool, Tripsy is a travel and trip planning tool. If you are going on family trips with different people, Tripsy is going to be a better choice. If you are doing a lot of activities and sightseeing on your trip, Tripsy will be the better choice. The free plan provides basic travel management in this app. 

Tripsy Pro

In this case, it is the $39 question, so Tripsy is $10 less per year than TripIt. Interestingly, Tripsy also offers a $199 lifetime plan. So, if you are fully committed to this being your travel management application for the next several years, that could be a way to go. It feels like a steep investment for a space that continues to evolve, but it does get you out of the annual subscription cycle that many people dislike. I think I would advise using it for a year and then determine whether I’d want to upgrade. I have a sneaky suspicion that once you sign up, you will receive offers for saving over the base lifetime’ price. There could even be promotions for the app during Black Friday or other seasonal periods. So, I’d advise waiting before going all in.  

You do get many important features with the Pro version though. The ability to forward itineraries, get flight updates, get other alerts, and share to a calendar all come with the annual subscription price. Interestingly, with the Pro version you can also get TripIt integration. That will allow you to flow your travel itineraries over seamlessly, and give you access to Tripsy’s more robust travel planning elements that don’t exist in TripIt. Again, this really comes down to what you are looking for in the app itself. 

One other app to consider

If you are more interested in flight tracking and your airplane details, the Flighty app might be of interest to you. Their pricing plan also allows for occasional usage. So if you only travel a few times per year, but want the most current, up to date information about where your plane is coming from, how likely it is to be late, and alternatives in case your flight is delayed or cancelled, then Flighty is the app for you. It is not necessarily a replacement for the other two, but can be a nice add-on feature. The app offers weekly plans, so you are not tied to costs for the full year when you may only need it for occasional air travel. It provides the most options for the length of your subscription. Weekly all the way to lifetime. It is a notable add-on for those who like a lot of data about flights.

Which one is better?

As with most things these days, there isn’t an easy apples to apples comparison. I think for the everyday business traveler, TripIt is the likely better choice. The integrations with Concur and ability to easily get itineraries into the app (for free) become the table stakes for this group. If you do a lot of air travel, the Pro version makes a lot of sense right away. The alerts and added features are likely going to pay for themselves in a single instance. Even having them for peace of mind is likely worth the added cost. If you really need to manage multiple family vacations, especially large family trips, Tripsy is the better way to go. If you are doing a lot of different activities and seeing multiple sites, its sharing and collaboration features will be worth the effort of setting up the app, and likely paying for the Pro version as well.

I plan to play with both of these apps in the coming months and will provide an update later in the year if there is new information to share or further helpful recommendations. Out of the gate, I would lean towards TripIt, but we’ll see if there are any surprises along the way. Happy traveling!

Have you used TripIt or Tripsy? Any additional insights you would share? 

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