Simplify Your Holiday Travel With Your Cell Phone

The holidays are stressful enough; add in travel, weather delays and other travelers, and you might be tempted to stay home. But don’t despair, the Wirefly Blog team has assembled the Top Ten Mobile Travel Tips to keep your holidays bright.

Before you Go

1) Save all your contacts before you go; including cell phones and destination phone numbers. If you’ve made any travel arrangements, save those numbers as well. Include your travel agent if you’re using one – it’s easier than trying to find those papers in a crunch.

2) If you’re traveling overseas, know the local emergency number – in many countries it’s 112 rather than 911, but better to be sure before you need it.

3) Current travel warnings - updated regularly - are available straight from the State Department by calling 888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except on U.S. federal holidays) or online anytime at the Department’s website.

4) Visit your airline’s web site to have text alerts sent to your cell phone so you’ll be aware of any changes to your itinerary before you leave for the airport.

5) Use your camera phone to take a picture of your luggage before you check it. If you have to fill out a lost baggage claim form, you’ll have to be able to describe the bag (where are the wheels, pockets, zippers, etc.) That’s much easier to do if you have a picture to look at for reference.

During Your Trip

6) Use your camera phone to take a picture of where you parked at the airport. When you come back from your trip, all those parking lots will start to look the same and this way you’ll know right where you parked.

7) Stuck in a long security line? Check if there are other security lines that are typically shorter at that time of day by using your PDA or web enabled cell phone to visit the TSA’s Wait Time resource.

8 ) To check your flight status while you are en route simply text your flight number to Google (466453) and the status of your flight will be text messaged back to you. Or text an airline name and Google will text you back the main contact number.

9) If you need more detailed information about your flight, point your web enabled cell phone or PDA to http://mobile.flightstats.com and track your flight including delays and gate information. This information is updated real time from air traffic control and is often more current than what you’ll have at the gate. Even a few minutes head start can be helpful when you need to rebook a cancelled flight during the busy holiday season.

10) If you do have to rebook a flight because of a cancellation, while you’re waiting in line use your cell phone to call the airline’s customer service line to see what options they have for other flights and ask about other airlines as well.

And, as a bonus, Tip #11:

Be sure you have a data plan for your cell phone before you implement the first ten tips. You’ll be sending and receiving a lot of data and text messages, but it’s worth it to make your holiday travel stress-free.