A roundup of useful travel resources and applications we’ve come across.
Cheap Flights & Mistake Fares
YEG Deals
Automated aggregation of cheap flight offers departing YEG (has sister sites for all major flight hubs in Canada, eg. YULdeals.com, YYCdeals.com, etc).
Mighty Travels
Provides real time notifications of error fares and hotel rates for subscription fee of $6.20 per month.
Next Departure
Provides updates on price drops for airfare, subscription fee of $4.49 per month or $35.99 per year.
Award Search Engines
Expert Flyer
Premier award search engine, user friendly and cost effective. However cannot search award space for Cathay, Japan (JAL), or Qatar Airlines.
Cost: $4.99 (basic) or $9.99 (premium) monthly.
Award Nexus
Search Engine for finding First class, Business class, or complex route flight mileage awards.
Cost: $59-249 USD, based on points not time.
KVS Availability Tool
Desktop application. Uses airline reservation systems to view available award seats across all 3 major airline alliances.
Cost: $35-75 USD annually.
AwardLogic
Award search engine that lets you see the number of points required for a specific route, across multiple loyalty programs.
Cost: $4.99 USD (daily), $19.99 USD (monthly), or $199 USD (annually).
Point.me
Find the lowest cost in points to travel between any two airports. Large number of results. Search day-by-day.
Cost: $129 USD annually.
Roame Travel
More airline programs than seat.aero, but fewer than point.me. Results are fast and you can search whichever date you want.
SeatSpy
A tool for finding awards on select airlines. The tool is quick and displays a full year of results all at once.
Cost: $3.99 USD monthly for Premium, $9.99 USD monthly for First Class.
Seats.aero
Seats.aero is a mostly free tool which makes it easy to find close-in awards on long-haul flights.
AwardHacker
AwardHacker is a free tool which displays best possible fixed redemption flight options (does not show seat availability).
MaxMyPoint
Check award availability across Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott hotels. Shows standard room availability for the entire year, particularly useful for Hyatt.
Hotel Aggregators, Discount Sites, & Sharing Economy
Agoda
Online travel agency and metasearch engine for hotels, vacation rentals, flights, and airport transfer.
Holiday Swap
“Tinder of travel”, lets you match with other vacation homes and swap houses with each other for specified dates.
Priceline
Priceline.com is an online travel agency for finding discount rates for travel-related purchases such as airline tickets and hotel stays.
Travel Planning
FlightConnections
Powerful, interactive, and filterable search engine that displays specific airline routes between major airports.
Notion
Not specifically a travel planning app, but a highly versatile and customizable app that can be configured as a one-stop wiki page for your trip plans.
TripIt
TripIt and TripIt Pro consolidates all your bookings into one itinerary, sends reminders and updates, and even offers alternative options.
Wanderlog
Use as a route map showing directions, distances, and driving times between different attractions you might want to visit.
Currency Conversion & ATM Services
See our travel tutorial on foreign cash and currency solutions for a discussion of the best credit cards, prepaid cards and conversion services available.
Revolut
Currency conversion service and reloadable prepaid debit Visa Platinum card. Access to interbank currency exchange rates, free ATM withdrawal (up to $400/$800 monthly).
Stack
Re-loadable prepaid debit Mastercard with no foreign ATM withdrawal fees or foreign currency exchange fees.
Wise
Currency conversion service for sending money abroad. Money can be loaded with various methods but must be transferred to a bank account.
Conotoxia
Polish competitor to Revolut and TransferWise. Has a payment card like Revolut but only for Poland residents.
Paysend
PaySend is a global fintech company that provides international money transfer services, allowing individuals and businesses to send money to recipients in different countries quickly and conveniently.
Xe
Xe is a Canada-based foreign exchange services company offering international money transfers, and other currency-related services.
Bill Payment Services
PaySimply
Pay bills to the CRA, municipalities, colleges and universities, and utility companies using their credit cards at a 2.50% fee.
Plastiq
Pay your bills using Visa, MasterCard, or American Express, charging no more than 2.85% for every transaction to a recipient in Canada.
PayTM
PayTM has a large database of major billers like the CRA, municipalities, universities, and utility companies. Available via mobile app only.
Melio Pay
Free and easy to use payment solution allowing US small businesses to pay any domestic business expense by credit card, even where cards are not accepted.
