Tech & Travel: Life-saving Business Apps

Traditionally, business travellers packed up their brief cases, booked their tickets and business travel insurance and set off hoping for the best. Today, we thankfully have a range of technology to make sure that our trips run smoothly and successfully. But are you making the most of the technology that’s out there? Here is my rundown of the top business travel apps that no one travelling for work should be without.

1.    FlightView Flight Tracker

If you fly a lot for work, you probably already have some kind of flight tracker app on your phone. However, FlightView Flight Tracker is the next generation in flight tracker technology: it will not only show you which terminal and gate you’ll need to go to when you arrive at the airport, but will also tell you about delays and provide real-time flight tracking of your plane (before and after you get on it). It will even track your flight with a weather overlay, so that you know what kind of weather your plane is flying through. And as if this weren’t enough already, it will give you driving instructions for getting to the airport and weather details for your destination. In fact, the only thing it won’t do is pack your suitcase for you!

2.    LoungeBuddy

Delays can be frustrating, but if you’re sitting in a comfortable lounge enjoying the facilities and getting some work done, then at least you’re putting the time to good use. The LoungeBuddy is an app designed to find what lounges you’re eligible to use at any given airport. Enter all of your frequent flyer details and LoungeBuddy will find all venues for you, as well as listing any paid-for lounges. User reviews and star ratings for lounges will let you know if they’re worth your while.

3.    DUFL

This extraordinary app will take all of the hassle out of packing for a business trip. Once you’ve registered with them, they will send you a large suitcase, which you fill with all of the clothes and toiletries that you are likely to want on a business trip and send it back to them. DUFL will then photograph all items, along with cleaning them. Now comes the good part: the next time you go on a work trip, you use the app to select the clothes you want to take and enter your destination. When you arrive, your suitcase will be there waiting for you, and when you leave, DUFL will pick up the suitcase and clean and store the clothes, ready for next time.

4.    HotelTonight

You never know what’s going to happen on a trip abroad (that’s why you always have business travel insurance, right?). So, what do you do if you arrive at your destination and find that your room isn’t booked, or you don’t like the room that you’ve been given? The answer: you take out your phone and look at your HotelTonight app. Offering discount rooms for same night bookings, hotels use the app to fill empty rooms at knock-down prices. Problem solved.

While apps are great, one thing’s for sure: nothing can protect you from cancelled flights, closed hotels or mislaid luggage as effectively as business travel insurance. It’s important to make sure that you are fully covered so that you can get on with your work as quickly and smoothly as possible if the worst does happen.

Author Plate

Patrick Chong is the Managing Director of InsureMore, an award-winning team of specialists in global single trip, family, annual and  business travel insurance policies. Besides offering great deals on travel insurance, Patrick also collects and shares the best free travel competitions to help his clients get the most out of their holidays.