If you’ve ever heard of WorldMate, you know it’s a popular travel planning and organizational service. Clearly looking at their home page, you can see they are proud to have expanded their mobile reach onto the iPhone
iPhone Store Links:
Download the free version: WorldMate – The Traveler’s Value Pack
Download the pay version: WorldMate Gold – The Must-have App for Road Warriors
Here’s how it works:
Since I have a trip planned to Las Vegas in the next couple weeks, this was a perfect time to try the app. I downloaded and registered it (which syncs to your email account). The first screen you see is gorgeous. It displays a bright weather graphic with current conditions in your area along with the time and temperature.
Now I want to add my trip info. I found all my confirmation emails and forwarded them (don’t edit the emails, just forward them) to trips@worldmate.com. Once the email is received, it scrapes the pertinent information and automatically builds your travel itinerary and syncs to your iPhone. It works for flight, hotel, car, and meetings.
Once you forward the email, you’ll receive an email back whether your itinerary has been accepted or rejected–usually taking less than 30 seconds. Once it accepts your email, you’re able to see your check-in and out time, confirmation numbers, telephone numbers, even a link to Google Maps for directions.
Recently, the airline sent another email showing a change in my flight time, so I forwarded it to WorldMate, my itinerary updated automatically. When it gets closer to your trip, you can click on the “Get Status” button on your flight schedule to check on any delays, or you can browse alternate flights.
Other services on this app include:
- Flight Search: Searching flights between cities
- Currency Converter: convert sums and get exchange rates
- Tip Calculator: Add a tip for a meal or taxi
- Weather Forecast: Get your 5-day weather outlook for your city or any destination city
- Share Itenerary: Send your travel plans to anyone in your Contact list (great for letting your assistant know what you’re up to). The email it sends is very clean and easy to read…you know how hard it is to read confirmation emails, but this does a great job at presenting the good stuff only.
- Spread the Word: Tell anyone in your contact list about WorldMate (kinda pointless–it sends an email that says “Wow – check out WorldMate!” with a link)
You can also book hotels through the app, which is affiliated with Hotels.com.
PROS:
- Easy to manage your itinerary: Just forward confirmation emails!
- Presents your flight, car, hotel, and meeting time line in order and is very clean and easy to read.
- Makes sending your itinerary to others a snap. Recipient gets one email with all your travel plans
- It’s FREE!
CONS:
- There’s a small ad display unit on each page (unless you buy the Gold version for $19.99). Right now it only promotes buying the Gold version.
- Once it scrapes the email, you are not able to manually add or edit any info. For instance, I want to include my airline seat number and baggage claim area instead of leaving those areas blank.
I consider myself a mobile junkie, so if I ever need to look up my confirmation emails at the check-in counter, I usually search my Gmail account to find them, instead of printing out emails. But WorldMate definitely takes it a step further and puts together a very nice time line of my travels, all laid out perfectly.
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