Top Travel Planning Apps for our Windows Phones

Summertime is upon us and the vacation flavor is quickly moving into high gear. Many will be planning vacation getaways and at that place are plenty of Windows Phone apps available to help y'all plan your trips.

The focus of this calendar week's Windows Phone Fundamental roundup is travel planning apps that volition help you find hotels, flights and even rental cars all from one app. These one-finish shops make travel planning convenient and in many cases stress-free. Forth with these multi-faceted apps, we will also toss in a few apps that accept a singular focus for hotel reservations, flying bookings or rental cars.

Orbitz (Gratuitous)

Orbitz.com is a popular travel website that provides resources to find competitive pricing for your travel needs such as booking flights, hotel rooms and rental cars. The Orbitz Windows Phone app delivers these resource to the pocket-sized screen of your phone while you are on the go.

The main folio of the Orbitz app has options to search for hotel rooms, flights, rental cars and vacation packages. You tin too check on a flight's condition and log into your Orbitz Rewards account.

In the upper left corner of the primary page is a drop downward menu that will take similar shortcuts and is accessible throughout the app. Information technology is a nice bear upon and makes navigation a little simpler and user-friendly.

Hotels tin can exist searched by location (address, urban center, betoken of interest or airport) and you tin can apply your Windows Phone location services to detect a hotel nearby. Hotel information covers the nuts such as amenities, photos, reviews, dining and other attributes. Pricing is broken downwards by room blazon and you can brand reservations straight through the app.

Airline flights tin exist searched by circular-trip, one-way and multi-city schedules. Automobile searches include options as to where you need to selection the rental auto up at, where y'all desire to drop it off at and the dates you lot need the car. By default, automobile rental and air flight searches pull results from all available providers but y'all tin specify a preferred provider if desired.

The Vacation package is a nice pick that will plan your flight and hotel room in the same search. Just enter your departure and destination location, dates of travel and a few travel preferences and then Orbitz will generate a travel package for you.

Overall, the Orbitz Windows Phone app is a nice pick to consider. If y'all are an existing Orbitz.com member, the Windows Telephone app is a natural fit. I did find navigation to exist a piffling quirky with pages non loading completely. Nothing also detrimental merely don't be surprised if yous have to hit the Back button every so often and re-enter your search information.

• Orbitz - Windows Telephone 8 - Free - Shop Link

Kayak (gratuitous)

Similar Orbitz.com, Kayak.com is a popular travel website to assistance you book flights, hotel rooms and rental cars. The website has a simple, straightforward interface and the Kayak Windows Telephone app shares that simplicity.

The main page of the Kayak app has options to search for hotels, flights, rental cars, check out cost alerts, track flights and access your Kayak.com My Trips feature.

Searches for flights, hotels and cars share the app'due south simplicity. The hotel search has a prissy feature (the compass icon in the upper right corner) that will pull up cities in your area. Tap a city to automatically fill in the urban center field of the search engine. This can come up in handy when traveling and y'all are non exactly sure which metropolis you're closest to.

Everything else is adequately straightforward. You enter the destination city information (and departing city for flights), dates of travel, and a few other travel variables (guests, rooms needed, round-trip, one-way, etc.) and Kayak volition search hundreds of travel sites for the best deals.

Hotel information will include detailed information about the facility (location, contact numbers, rates, etc.), reviews and photos. Yous tin can besides pull up a map view of the hotel.

The merely affair missing from the Kayak app is a abode push that will send you back to the principal carte. Equally is, you will accept to tap the Back Button several times to get back to the main menu. A home button would be convenient and improve an already feature rich travel app.

Otherwise, the Kayak Windows Phone app is a well designed, easy to employ resource for your travel planning needs.

• Kayak - Windows Phone viii - Gratuitous - Shop Link

Travel (free)

Travel is Microsoft's contribution to the travel planning apps category. The app was originally titled Bing Travel and while we aren't sure every bit to the why, the "Bing" was dropped around the time the awarding left the Beta stages.

As with other apps in this week'south roundup, Travel volition let y'all search and book flights and hotel rooms but lacks the rental machine features. While you lot may non be able to hire a auto through Travel, the app makes up for this missing feature by providing a well-rounded, easy to navigation, expert looking Windows Phone app. Characteristics we've come to expect from a Bing app.

The chief pages of the app include:

• Search Page where you can search for flights, cheque on flight condition and search for hotels.
• Trip Idea Page where Travel will propose several destinations to consider for your vacation
• News Page full of travel related stories
• Destinations Folio where you lot can search for a destination past keyword and view attractions, photos, a Frommer's summary and search for flight and hotel data
• Favorites Page where you can tag destinations equally favorites and have quick admission to those pages

Hotel data is returned by the closest, most pop, everyman price and highest class of hotel. Private hotel listings will offer the customary rate data, amenities, photos and reviews.

Flight searches can be conducted to observe the lowest price, shortest fourth dimension, earliest divergence and fewest stops. You lot tin likewise search for one-mode flights.

The only downside to Travel is in that location were times the app took a considerable corporeality of time to return search results. Information technology wasn't a consequent delay but at times a niggling on the frustrating side. Notwithstanding, if you have the need for a travel planning app for your Windows Phone, Travel should be on your brusk list.

The inability to search and volume rental cars may be an effect with some only overall, Travel is a good addition to the Windows Phone travel app library.

• Travel - Windows Phone 8 - Free - Store Link

TripAdvisor (free)

As with most of the Windows Phone apps mentioned in this week'southward roundup, the TripAdvisor app provides you with mobile access to a travel website of the same proper name (TripAdvisor.com).

The Trip Counselor app is designed to assist yous discover hotels, restaurants, and attractions for your destination. The app does lack the ability to search and volume flights or rental cars but does a prissy job of providing you dining and entertainment information.

The principal pages for TripAdvisor includes an Explore folio where you can search for hotels, attractions and restaurants; a folio list hotels, attractions and dining options almost your location; and a My Saves folio that will list whatever places yous tag equally favorites.

Hotel data volition provide you with the customary details on that particular institution that includes location details, reviews, photos, amenities, etc. Yous can as well have Trip Counselor search for the lowest prices from partner sites.

TripAdvisor is more scaled dorsum than the other Windows Phone apps in this week's roundup but it does a nice job of things. If yous already have a fashion to get to your holiday getaway and demand help with finding a place to stay and where to get a good meal, TripAdvisor is a Windows Phone app worth a try.

• TripAdvisor - Windows Phone 8 - Free - Shop Link

All-time of the bunch?

All four highlighted apps practice a decent chore of helping you plan a flying, book a hotel room and, for some, find you a rental auto to utilize once y'all get to your destination.

Orbitz offers a nice range of features to help you book flights, hotel rooms and rental cars but the navigation didn't feel as smooth equally with the other options. TripAdvisor does have hotel, restaurant and attraction search features merely lacks any flying or automobile rental features. While everyone may not miss these omissions, without them the app does accept a backseat to the other apps in this week'south roundup.

Kayak and Travel offer the best layout and feature set but Travel may be hindered by the lack of a car rental feature. Once again, this may not be a slap-up loss to anybody. Betwixt the two (if motorcar rentals aren't needed) information technology's a money toss equally to which is the better option. Both are free, and so it won't injure to try them both out and decide for yourself.

While the highlighted apps tend to multi-task to help you with your travel plans, we take a few additional Windows Phone apps to mention that are more than single-tasked oriented in finding a hotel, booking a flying or securing a rental machine.

Official Airline Apps: Nosotros have seen this category of apps grow over fourth dimension to include several major airline companies. While features may very slightly, most of these apps volition let you search for flights, runway flights, access your premium accounts, check airport layouts, set parking reminders and more than.

• American Airlines - Windows Phone viii and 7.10 - Free - Store Link
• Wing Delta - Windows Telephone viii - Free - Store Link
• United - Windows Telephone eight - Free - Shop Link
• Virgin Atlantic (unofficial) - Windows Telephone 8 - Free - Store Link

Official Rental Car Apps: As with the airline apps, we accept seen a prissy showing of rental car companies release Windows Phone apps. In general, these apps will allow you to look up pricing and availability, reserve auto rentals and locate driblet-off locations. While Hertz and Thrifty both have Windows Telephone apps, neither receives practiced reviews. Here are the top rental car company apps based on their ratings.

• National Car Rental - Windows Phone eight - Free - Store Link
• Avis - Windows Phone 8 and 7.ten - Free - Store Link

Hotel Apps: In that location seems to be as many hotel finder apps in the Windows Phone Store as there are atmospheric condition apps. There are a few official hotel chain apps worth mentioning and two hotel finders that covers all your lodging options.

• Marriott Hotels - Windows Phone 8 - Free - Shop Link
• Hilton - Windows Phone 8 - Free - Store Link
• Hotels 4D - Windows Phone viii and 7x - Free - Store Link
• Priceline.com Hotels- Windows Phone eight and 7.10 - Gratuitous - Store Link

Lastly, we have two full general travel planning apps worth a mention. At that place is My Trips that is a TripIt.com companion app for your Windows Telephone and MakeMyTrip, which is a companion app for India's leading online travel provider, MakeMyTrip.com. Both come across as capable, feature rich Windows Phone apps to help yous plan your travels.

• My Trips - Windows Phone 8 and 7.10 - Trial/$ane.99 - Shop Link
• MakeMyTrip - Windows Phone 8 and 7.10 - Gratis - Store Link

We accept covered a lot of ground with travel apps in this week's roundup and if we've overlooked your favorite trip planning Windows Phone app (or travel app in general), let us know in the comments below. And if you lot're hitting the road or friendly skies this summer, we'd like to wish anybody safe travels and a relaxing vacation.

Xbox Insiders Update

This huge Xbox 'Quick Resume' update will give gamers more control

Microsoft is adding a new feature to Xbox consoles, allowing yous to permanently store upwards to ii games in a Quick Resume state at all times. The characteristic is heading out showtime to Xbox Insiders in the Alpha testing ring earlier hitting the full general public.

A Buyer's Guide

Prepare for your next trip with the all-time travel routers

If you're going on a trip, you lot demand a portable travel router that not only provides a fast connection, but offers a few more uses as well. Here's the travel routers that will make dealing with Wi-Fi on your tip a breeze.

Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/top-travel-planning-windows-phone-apps

Posted by: reeselationd.blogspot.com

Share this post