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Does Your Flight Have Wi-Fi? Hit Up HasWifi to Find Out!

Simon Mackie — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 21:00:47 +0000

In-flight Wi-Fi is becoming more common but it’s unfortunately not ubiquitous just yet; it can be difficult to tell which flights have it available. Enter your flight details into HasWifi and it’ll let you know whether you’re likely to be able to stay connected during your journey, and if so, which service provider is used.

It looks like it currently only has details of flights using Gogo, and it can’t be 100 percent accurate, as carriers will swap aircraft in and out depending on scheduling, etc., but it’s still pretty useful for quickly checking if you’re likely to be able to get online at 30,000 feet. The results should improve over time, too, as users can hit the “You Tell Us” links to vote on whether HasWifi’s details of a particular flight are accurate.

If you’d like more detail on the services available on a particular flight, SeatGuru can also tell you whether a flight will have Wi-Fi, together with other useful information, such as seat pitch, and whether particular seats on a flight are good or bad for some reason (SeatGuru also has details on flights from a far greater number of carriers than HasWifi; it’s a better option for non-US residents).

Found a good site for frequent travelers? Share it in the comments!

(Via Lifehacker)

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Top Travel Sites for Saving Money and Avoiding Hassle

Samuel Dean — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:00:08 +0000

Although travel is down in this economy, it’s still required for many of us. In addition to the high-profile travel sites that most people already know about, there are some great new and lesser-known sites that can save you money on trips, and beat many common types of hassles. They can help you save money on airport parking, make sure your seat on a plane will allow you to work in-flight, and much more. Here are several sites to try before your next trip.

If you want to find an ideal hotel to stay in on a trip, try Hotelicopter. The site compares pricing and availability from over 30 travel and hotel sites. You can use thermometer-style sliding controls to adjust thresholds for prices and star ratings. When you decide on a hotel, the site searches for the best available price you can get at various sites around the web instead of just directing you immediately to the hotel’s site.

Before you book a hotel, or if you’re looking for restaurants and other attractions in a particular city, TripAdvisor remains an essential site to go to. It has a very large database of customer reviews and ratings, plus many photos uploaded by travelers.

Do you take the time to optimize the seats you get on your plane flights? I haven’t found a better site for doing this than SeatGuru, which has a large database of the common planes flown by major airlines. You can pull up a seat map for the type of plane you’ll be on, and access an In-Flight Amenities list, which tells you what kinds of audio, video, Internet and power options your seat will offer. You can also pull up comparison lists, as seen in the screenshot above, showing seating options, laptop power availability, and even seat size for domestic and international flights offered by various airlines. SeatGuru’s database is also now much larger than it used to be.

Did you know that you can get a refund from airlines on a plane ticket you’ve already bought if the price of the ticket drops? Prices on many flights are currently dropping, so it’s a good idea to use Yapta‘s flight price tracking service: Enter the price you paid for your ticket, and the site will tell you if it drops. You can also check a list of available refunds.

Many sites let you check on the status of flights that are in the air, but FlightAware has a really dependable real-time database. All the data comes directly from air traffic controllers, and you can pull up graphical maps showing where various flights are. You can also check the status of any airport. FlightStats is also worth using for checking on the status of flights, and more.

If you fly frequently, take the time to compare the various mileage programs offered by the airlines at WebFlyer. There are large differences between the programs, and the site will also assist you in transferring miles and points between the programs.

Parking is often a hassle at airports. You can use AboutAirportParking to get updated information on over 400 airport parking lots at more than 100 airports. If you reserve parking online with the site, you can also save a lot of money, especially if you’re willing to park in a remote lot.

What travel sites do you use?

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Two Sites to Ease Your Travel Headaches

Samuel Dean — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:00:27 +0000

AltSearchEngines has a couple of posts up that should be of interest to web workers who frequently travel. SeatGuru, a great site for planning out which airplane seat to sit in and which amenities your seat will provide, has been steadily adding site visitor reviews and more since being acquired by TripAdvisor in 2007. Meanwhile, FlightWait cuts through the complicated muck at many of the flight tracking sites and shows you just the flights in your area that are delayed.

Here’s what you’ll find at these useful travel sites.

I’ve written about SeatGuru before, but it’s been steadily adding user-interaction features and more. On each page for any plane SeatGuru.com lists, you’ll find an In-Flight Amenities list, which can tell you what kinds of audio, video, Internet and power options your seat will offer. You’ll find complete instructions for making selections on the site at the bottom of the home page.

The real strength of SeatGuru, though, comes from its ever-growing database of airplane seat maps, which now hosts 535 maps for more than 75 different airlines, according to AltSearchEngines. Through a “Submit Comments” button on each seat map page, users can contribute comments about the particular planes, where to sit, what your Internet options will be, entertainment options, and more. If you tend to accept random seat placements, especially for long flights where you may want to work or be entertained, check this out.

I’ve also written about FlightAware before. It’s very good for its huge, nearly real-time tracking of flights via data from air traffic controllers. However, the sheer amount of information may be overkill if you just want to see if a flight of interest is delayed or not.

FlightWait, a new site that I found at AltSearchEngines, has simpler goals than FlightAware does. It lets you enter a zip code, a city or an airport code (such as SFO for San Francisco), and get a graphic depicting any flights that are not delayed in green, while delayed flights are shown in red and black. For example, this afternoon if you typed SFO in, you would see most flights not delayed, but a San Francisco to Chicago flight showing a one- to two-hour delay. This site is useful for a view that takes seconds to get at, and FlightAware can give you more information if you find that you are looking at a delay.

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FlightAware, for Sophisticated, Accurate Real-Time Flight Tracking

Samuel Dean — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:00:52 +0000

Despite the economic downturn, many of us web workers still travel frequently, and that means dealing with always unpredictable airports, airplanes, weather conditions at destinations, and more. I’ve written before about a few of the sites that can ease the whole process, and one of them, the truly useful FlightAware, has been adding a lot of useful new features.

As always, FlightAware is a carrier-independent, database-driven site that tracks airborne aircraft, arrivals, ETAs and much more. It uses air traffic control data that is up-to-date on a nearly real-time basis and is very dependable.

You can check the status of any flight, including ones in the air, by using the Flight Tracker module on the left side of FlightAware’s home page. You can even see graphical displays of departure and arrival activity at any major airport.

With an eye toward being more of a travel hub than just a database of flight information, FlightAware includes many features added in recent months. You can get estimated departure times, which are based on many factors, including weather, traffic at the airport your flight originates from, and more. FlightAware also now tracks airline schedules many hours before flights take off, while it used to provide snapshots only about an hour in advance of flights.

Among other new features, you can check real-time weather conditions at arrival airports, and track commercial flights. If you fly frequently, I also continue to recommend SeatGuru highly. On each page for any plane SeatGuru.com lists, you’ll find an In-Flight Amenities list, which can tell you what kinds of audio, video, Internet and power options your seat will offer. You’ll find complete instructions for making selections on the site at the bottom of the home page.

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