Review – ITA Software OnTheFly for Android

If you have ever booked an airline ticket online, then you have a very good chance you made use of fare information from a company called ITA Software. ITA is so important to the online world that Google purchased them earlier this year. ITA’s technology is what powers many of the major booking engines, including some from the airlines themselves.

So can you imagine how powerful an app could be if it had live access to the ITA fare data? Well, imagine no longer, because owners of an Android phone or an iPhone can download OnTheFly – ITA’s mobile application for airfare searches.

Unlike many other airline ticket applications, OnTheFly is designed with a specific kind of traveler in mind – the kind of traveler that doesn’t get scared when they see booking codes or fare constructions. If you understand how airline tickets work – an application like OnTheFly could be your best tool for fighting overpriced tickets – as long as you know where to look.

The application itself is very well made – the version I tested was for Android, and given the ITA – Google – Android links, it comes as no surprise that this is one well designed application.

The smart design starts when you enter an airport – in addition to the airport name or code you entered, it’ll also show other airports to consider.

In the case of Minneapolis, the closest alternative airport is 61 miles away, but when you enter one of the New York airports, you obviously get some better alternatives. Searches can be done by date, flexible dates, fare class, number of stops and a variety of other options.

The results matrix shows airfare by airline, along with the number of stops – making it very simple to pinpoint the best fare.
Results can expanded with other airports or alternative dates.

Once you’ve picked a fare, you can pick your times. Depending on the departure time, fares may go up, so this simple chart shows then the best time to fly will be.

And once you pick an actual flight, you can display its fare information, mileage and even its emissions data – which is great if you participate in a CO2 offset program.

Now – to be perfectly clear – OnTheFly is NOT a ticket booking application – it merely shows the best fares, from ITA’s database. Once you’ve found the perfect flights, you will need to call the airline and give them the information they need to actually book your ticket. Of course, you can also call your travel agent if you still happen to use one.

Thankfully, OnTheFly tells you EXACTLY what the airline will need to know in order to book the exact ticket you want. Since some of these tickets use specific booking codes, you’ll need this data to snag the fare you found.

Bottom line is that OnTheFly is the best mobile airfare search app I’ve ever tested – but it is most certainly not for everyone. If you just want to go online and book whatever looks cheap-ish, then you’ll probably want to stay away from it. But if you make a sport out of finding the absolute cheapest airfare, maximizing your miles and taking advantage of specific booking classes, you’ll get a real kick out of the power of ITA on your mobile device.

To learn more about ITA Software OnTheFly, and to find download links, head on over to their product page.

Kayak Explore: cheap airline tickets based on your budget

A neat new online tool from travel firm Kayak tells you where you can fly, based upon your available budget. Simply pop your departure airport into Kayak Explore, tell it how much you can spend, and when you want to fly – and the service will deliver a map of the world with little pins showing how much it’ll cost to fly there.

The site gathers its data from the millions of airfare combinations Kayak monitors, and allows you to find real bargains. Of course, with a tool like this, you can also find ways to maximize your mileage account, finding the furthest destination with the lowest price. Search filters even allow you to pick activities, spoken languages, and the average daily temperature.

The one thing the tool won’t do is tell you exactly when that fare can be found – the fare displayed is merely the lowest within a general time frame. Once you’ve found a cheap destination, you can enter your dates and head to the main Kayak search pages. You’ll find Kayak Explore at kayak.com/explore. Happy fare hunting!

Share your travel deals with friends with Yapta’s Frugal Travel Flaunts

Yapta, a website that tracks prices and helps you figure out when to book your airfare, has launched a new Facebook application called Frugal Travel Flaunts. When you find a deal on a flight and add it to “my trips”, you can choose to publish it on your Facebook page, alerting all your friends to your great find.

The idea behind the app is pretty solid. How many times have you found out about the amazing low-cost flight a friend found, but too late? Hearing that my friend spent just $300 on a round trip ticket from Chicago to London after she gets back from the trip doesn’t help me take advantage of the same deal. And likewise, I feel bad when friends ask why I didn’t share the news of my cheap fare purchase with them. The Frugal Travel Flaunts application allows you to use social media to alert your friends to good deals and helps you score your own with a few easy clicks.

Yapta will also help you get a credit if a flight you’ve already purchased drops in price. The site will alert you to the fare decrease with a link that sends you to the page on their site with credit info. You can also “flaunt” that on your Facebook page, though I see that as a less useful tool. Sharing news on killer deals is one thing, boasting about refunds is another – there’s a fine line between a flaunt and a taunt.

Twitter + Fares = Twares


Twares may not be a word in the dictionary now, but it might be a common word in travel vocabulary soon.

Twares is a noun, and it means you can get special, time-sensitive fare offers from United Airlines if you follow the airlines on Twitter.

A tweet was sent from @UnitedAirlines at around 11:10 a.m. ET on Wednesday to promote a special $63 each-way “Tware” between Washington Reagan National and Chicago O’Hare. The first tware has expired, but United is holding a 10K Twitter follower challenge (it’s at just over 5,000 followers right now). When it reaches that number, another tware might pop up.

It’s time to stop stalling and join Twitter!

You can find Gadling on Twitter, as well as most of the Gadling Team: Mike Barish, Kraig Becker, Catherine Bodry, Alison Brick, Justin Glow, Aaron Hotfelder, Tom Johansmeyer, Jeremy Kressmann, Heather Poole, Jamie Rhein, Annie Scott, Karen Walrond, Kent Wien, and Brenda Yun.

Spirit Airlines staff fed up being called DD MILF’S by their employer

The hard working cabin crew at Spirit Airlines are fed up – they are annoyed that their boss is inviting passengers to check out their DD’s, and asking people to come book a “MILF”.

For those that missed out on a “movie classic”, MILF is a reference from American Pie, and the abbreviation means “Mother I’d like to F**K”.

That’s right – Spirit is using that cheeky reference as a way to get passengers on their low cost flights. In the world of Spirit Airlines, MILF means “Many Islands Low Fares”, a reference to their $9 island flights.

Oh, and DD? It doesn’t refer to the breast size of their staff, it’s just a way of saying “deep discounts”.

Still, the cheesy innuendo has become so much of an issue that the staff have asked their union to force Spirit to pull the series of ads.

Another hot issue is ad placement – Spirit began selling ad space on tray tables, cups and napkins. The next item in line for ads was the staff apron which has become a placard for Bud light, and the crew is fed up with it.

Union reps claim that flight attendants will have a hard time telling drunk passengers that they will be cut off from booze sales, when they are walking around as walking beer commercials – and I happen to agree with that.

Of course, the airline says the initiatives help the company grow, and secure jobs, but there have to be better ways to make a few bucks, especially if it is annoying your staff this much.

(Via: Foxnews.com, image from Zazzle.com)