HOW TO

Get through the airport faster

3 apps to smooth your holiday travel. Tap to read.

Few things are more stressful than holiday travel, especially when everyone is basically running around like the family from Home Alone. We can’t help much with flight delays, legroom issues or lines for coffee, but we can provide a few ideas for smoothing out your holiday travel experience. We can also drop this pro tip: Download your airline’s app before leaving the house. That way, you can access flight info and boarding pass and departure updates before having to deal with crowds – and airport Wi-Fi.

TripIt

If you’re still printing out a million different receipts and itineraries, you can stop now.

TripIt is a remarkably handy service that becomes a comprehensive travel guide with very little effort on your part. Once you’ve booked a trip, forward all your email confirmations to plans@tripit.com. From there, the app will organise your data and provide a full itinerary that shows all your flights, hotels, car rentals, and other pertinent data in one place.

Bonus: In iOS 12, you can create a shortcut that will let you ask Siri for all your travel plans. And TripIt is available for Apple Watch.

Kayak

Your carry-on bag is ready for its close-up.

‣ A longtime favourite of the travel industry, Kayak recently introduced an augmented reality (AR) baggage measurement tool that helps determine bag size ahead of time so people (such as yourself) won’t be stuck at the gate with an oversized bag (you’ll just be someone who takes portraits of their suitcases, which is so much better).

LoungeBuddy

Warning: Once you become an airport-lounge person, it’s hard to go back.

‣ Escape the hustle and noise of the terminal by firing up LoungeBuddy, which sells access to those fancy airport lounges that offer coffee, Wi-Fi and respite from the groups blocking traffic by walking four-wide through the terminal.

Filter available lounges by criteria such as “Fresh”, “Basic” and “Solid” and those tagged as Before or After Security. Input your flight information (or import it from TripIt), and LoungeBuddy will list the lounges to which you already have access based on your airlines or credit cards. The app won’t solve all your holiday problems, but it will offer a welcome break from them.