1. More Options to Refresh
My biggest annoyance with TripIt to date is where the refresh button is located. On most devices you can refresh from the home screen of all your itineraries. The challenge is you likely want an update now on a specific flight segment and have to back out to the main screen to refresh. By default TripIt is battery friendly and updates every 3 hrs. and this is configurable. However a one tap refresh now button on a given flight would make for a better experience
2. Check Flight Status
I use TripIt Pro and have only had one occasion where it failed to notify me of a Flight delay and gate change. For a given flight segment there is an option to check flight status, which is perfect except it dumps you out to flightstats.com. Given I pay for TripIt Pro, I want everything in-app. I have nothing against Flight Tracker as it is a great app, however I want to live my travel life in and with TripIt.
3. Native App Experience
No matter the platform iOS, Android, or BlackBerry, TripIt feels like a web app vs. a native app. The challenge is sometimes when you navigate away and return it does not remember where you last visited so you get dumped on the main screen vs. in the current itinerary.
4. Launch on Current Trip
If I launch TripIt, I want it to open on the current itinerary. Considering that TripIt knows my travel dates, times and all details, it should open with that in mind. I don’t mind clicking back to get to the main screen, however I am always clicking into a specific itinerary. If you are between travel dates, then open at the main screen. I know this is being picky, however TripIt is the best travel companion and it need to do it right.
5. Layover Duration
In the Tripit Itinerary view you can see all your travel items and the times they start however you cannot at a glance understand if you have a 1 hr. or 3 hr. layover between flights.
6. TripIt to Exchange Calendar
One of the best features of Worldmate is the ability to sync the Worldmate travel calendar to your corporate calendar automatically. While TripIt supports importing we need a simple way to automatically sync to a calendar on your mobile device or as simple as sending a meeting invites once an itinerary is in TripIt.
7. Stop Duplicating Items
While I normally do all my travel arrangements through my corporate Exchange account, I have all my itineraries forward to a Gmail account as well, so that it is quick and easy to find on my Android phone, just in case. That is also where I receive email from airlines about updates and flight changes. TripIt has an auto-import feature that will automatically pickup the changes and add them to a trip. This is an excellent feature. However, it leaves the old data in place, so I often find myself with multiple nearly identical flights, for example. TripIt needs to keep just the latest update and dump the rest, or at least gray them out so you know they are not current.
8. Give Me Some History
While I appreciate the fact that TripIt is focused on helping my trip right now, it could be an amazing repository of travel history. I often don’t return to a particular city for several months, and it is always a bit of a challenge to try and recall where I stayed last time, or determine what airport I flew in to, etc. It would be really nice if TripIt would allow you to search against past trips, perhaps by city name or something like that, at pull back details of what you had booked. And I would like to do I on my mobile device, thank you!
