NATALIE MORALES, anchor:
This morning on
TODAY'S TRAVEL
, navigating the
Web
to help plan your next trip. With all the apps and websites out there, searching for the best airline deals or finding a good bargain on a hotel can be overwhelming. So
Travel Leisure
has done all the hard work for us. In their digital toolbox annual guide, they direct you to their 80 favorites.
Nilou Motamed
is the feature's director at
Travel Leisure
.
Nilou
, good morning.
Ms. NILOU MOTAMED (Features Editor, Travel Leisure Magazine):
Good morning,
Natalie
.
MORALES:
So that's a lot of research. How did
Travel Leisure
work it all down to 80 favorite apps and websites?
Ms. MOTAMED:
You know, our consumer news team did not sleep for about three months. They were -- they were testing all of these apps so that we wouldn't have to. Whether you're looking to book a cheap fare, whether you want to save money, save time, these are the apps to use. Because, honestly, there are so many out there, how do you know which one is best? Especially when you're spending money on them.
MORALES:
Right. Not all of the recommendations by the way, are on the
Web
. They can -- either apps, as you mentioned.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Some of them are apps, some of them are websites. So -- and some of them are both. So there are little icons that -- to make it easier.
MORALES:
Make life easier. So let's get right to it. Make your life easier, for example, if you're looking to book an
airline ticket
. When you buy the ticket, as you know, can really be the whole difference in where -- whether you end up going or not. And to help with your decision, in how you pay for it, you recommend bing.com.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Bing
.
com
is great because they have a fare predictor. Now, a lot of us sit there in front of the
Web
and say, 'When should I buy? Should I buy now? Is it going to go down? Is it going to go up?' And there's this moment of anxiety. Well, with this fare predictor, which uses algorithms and historical data, there's much less of that anxiety, which I really like. So I go to
Bing
absolutely just to figure out -- I mean, right now people are looking at their holiday
travel
. It's kind of hard to believe that we've gone straight from summer all the way to holiday. But if you're looking to decide where -- how, when to book your -- that holiday trip,
Bing
is the way to go.
MORALES:
Well, it's a fantastic app. Good to know. Now, if you're comparing airlines to figure out which one is cheapest, for example, or you know, to get to your destination the fastest,
Hipmunk
is
Travel Leisure
's top choice. I've never heard of
Hipmunk
.
Tell me about it
.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Hipmunk
is a new one.
MORALES:
Yeah.
Ms. MOTAMED:
So we found something that we really like with
Hipmunk
, which is that it's very intuitive and the design is very minimal, so it's very natural to look at it and figure out what you want. If you're looking based on time, if you're looking based on money, you can do that. There's also a funny category, which is agony.
MORALES:
Agony?
Ms. MOTAMED:
Agony is what you want the least of. Which is the stops, the amount, the cost and the amount of time that it's going to take you. So you want...
MORALES:
Less agony.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Less agony, the better when we're traveling.
MORALES:
All right. More
travel
, less agony. OK, now there are a lot of apps and a lot of websites out there that help you track your airline or find out how your
flight
is doing. But
FlightTrack
helps you if you are, for example, looking to see if your
flight
's delayed.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Well,
flight
delays make all of us crazy. Especially if you've got a connection, especially if you're picking someone up from the airport. And
FlightTrack
is our absolute favorite of all of the different apps, $4.99 well spent on this app in the
iTunes Store
. What's great about it, is not only is it -- is it useful, it's got information on when your
flight
is leaving, if your inbound
flight
is delayed, where your luggage will be landing when you land. But also it has -- I mean, it's very beautiful, so the satellite imagery, if you're on the plane and actually can watch the progression of the
flight
.
MORALES:
Progression of your
flight
?
Ms. MOTAMED:
And, if for some reason, you do have a delay, they're actually -- directly through the app, you can call the airline to see what other airline -- other flights, because you'll see the flights right there, and you can say, 'I want that
flight
.'
MORALES:
That's perfect.
Ms. MOTAMED:
So you'd be beating the lines.
MORALES:
You just saved me on my next delay. Thank you.
Ms. MOTAMED:
$4.99....
MORALES:
Exactly. OK, next we all know
Priceline
, of course. And it is still the most recommended, when it comes to booking a
hotel room
, by
Travel Leisure
.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Who would have thought that 13 years ago, when
Priceline
started, no one else would be beating them at their own game? This is still our number one favorite bidding site at
Travel Leisure
. You go online, you decide where you want to go, the quality of the hotel that you want, and you put in a bid, and either it gets accepted, or if it doesn't get accepted, you have to wait 24 hours before you can bid again. Of course, now there's a booming industry in websites that tell you how to use
Priceline
.
MORALES:
Right.
Ms. MOTAMED:
So one of them is called,
BestBetterBidder
dot -- BetterBidding.com. So you can go there, to get advice.
MORALES:
Say that three times fast.
Ms. MOTAMED:
I know. To get advice. But, incredibly, you can get as much as 40 percent off the lowest
Internet
rates if you -- if you book on
Priceline
. So that's a value.
MORALES:
Wow. Hey, good. Very good.
Ms. MOTAMED:
That's worth learning how to use it.
MORALES:
It is worth learning how to use it. All right. Next is -- now this is one you all need to know. Once you get to your destination, you want to find the best places to eat. So you've got an app for the best food in your destination. How does it work?
Ms. MOTAMED:
Yes, and that is called
Food Spotting
. And the reason that we like
Food Spotting
is all of us wish that we had a friend in the destination who could give us their favorites.
MORALES:
Right.
Ms. MOTAMED:
And this is the equivalent of that. And what's also cool about this app is that it's location-based, which means, wherever your phone is, wherever you are, is where it's going to serve you the best dishes and the
best foods
right around you. Now these are obsessive foodies who take pictures of the food they like, recommend the restaurants they love, and so -- if you're not sure though, if you can trust those people, because you don't know them, the likes of
Mario Batali
,
Anthony Bourdain
are also guides on this
Web
-- on this app. So you're going to get...
MORALES:
So you're getting it straight from the gourmets.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Exactly.
MORALES:
The men who know, and women as well. Now, next is, if you then want to pay for your meal, and I think what is -- I think it boggles all of us. How much do we tip, especially in other countries? You don't really know what the going rate is. Well,
Globetrotting
is, in fact -- I guess, actually, what's the name of the...
Ms. MOTAMED:
Globetipping
.
MORALES:
Globetipping
, actually, is the website and the app.
Ms. MOTAMED:
They're trying to be cute, but maybe almost too cute for a cer -- so if you can...
MORALES:
Yeah.
Globetipping
. No, it's good, it's good. We like it.
Ms. MOTAMED:
So this app is 99 cents, and what's great is when you're jet lagged and you get off the plane and you're taking your taxi in
Paris
, and you don't know how much to tip. You either end up feeling guilty that you're under tipping or over tipping...
MORALES:
Or over tipping, which I've done many times.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Or over tipping, which makes you crazy. And so this is fantastic in that it has tips for about 200 different countries.
And I
love it also because it has a tip calculator, so if you're home and you're having dinner with a bunch of friends, and you don't want to deal with the math, this tip calculator can even help you at home. So you don't have to be abroad in order to use this.
MORALES:
And you don't have to be a math genius, which we love.
Nilou Motamed
, thank you.
Ms. MOTAMED:
Thank you.
“ ”