Tech Tuesday :: Phoneography

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I know, we favor the iPhone just a tad here at Trip Styler. Blame our former Blackberries, which really nailed it on the email and bbm front...

Basic smartphone functions aside, when you can make your iPhone look like a classic camera and enhance its photos, we're sold.

Meet the Photojojo Rangefinder {$65 usd}, a phoneography system equipped with a shutter button, viewfinder, aperture numbers {just for show}, camera strap loops and tripod mount. Add on the fisheye, wide angle/macro and 2x telephoto magnetic lenses {mentioned in my 2012 wish list when I was interviewed by The Calgary Herald}, and you've got a triple threat {total for rangefinder and lenses $99 usd}.

Details - Case turns 'volume up' button into a shutter button - Surround doesn't block the charging dock or any buttons - Works with iPhone 4/4S

PS - Self-portrait perfection? A mirror is built into the faux front lens.

More Tech Tuesday Google Traveler Tricks Book A Hotel Online With Expert Recommendations STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix

[photos via photojojo]

Tech Tuesday :: Google Traveler Tricks

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Flipping through endless Encyclopedia Britannica volumes for elementary and jr. high projects, it still blows.my.mind Google can generate answers to 85% of travel queries in seconds.

What if I told you Google could work even faster? As long as you ask the right travel question, your answer will pop up in milliseconds, no additional clicks required. Here are some basic Google travel queries I use every day:

Weather Find the weather forecast, search “weather city” ex: “weather vancouver” *Note, if you just type "weather" Google will also show the weather forecast in your current location. To find airport weather conditions, search “[airport name/code] airport + conditions” ex: “ogg airport + conditions”

Local Time Find the local time, search “time place” ex: “time Paris”

Directions Find a map and a link to directions, search "business place" ex: "pizzeria farina vancouver"

Flights Find direct flights from your home airport, search "direct flights from vancouver"

Find direct flights from your home airport to your destination, search "direct flights from vancouver to maui"

Find flight status, search “flight name and/or number” ex: “ha 30″

Currency Convert currency, search “amount currency to another currency” ex: “100 cad to aud” *Note that sometimes this feature can be finicky. Make sure you have the exact short-form symbol for each country's currency. Bonus Conversions: Temperatures – “[temperature] [C/F] to [F/C]” ex: “12 c to f” Distances or Driving Speeds– “[value] [distance unit] in/to [distance unit]” ex: “140 miles in km” / ex: “90 mph to kph”

Translate Translate words and phrases, search "translate: [word or phrase] to language" ex: "translate: I like bananas to french" Bonus: Type the foreign word you don't know into Google image search to see what it is.

*I would like to give credit to the Vagabondish travel blog, credited with posting some of these Google travel shortcuts in 2008. I've been using them since then.

More Tech Tuesday Book A Hotel Online With Expert Recommendations STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix Dashboard To Wall Hotel Tonight

[images via google]

Tech Tuesday :: Informed Hotel Booking

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One of the biggest travel time wasters is fretting over what hotel to book, getting stuck in research mode comparing features, price, location, etc.

Have you been there? I have, and it results in hotel decision paralysis. The worst case scenario---like shopping at the dual-winged multi-floor Macy's NYC---is you get overwhelmed by the options and give up.

Over the past year, Kayak's been working on a series of solutions for "hotel research purgatory", with the latest of three launching last Thursday. Now, when you research a hotel on Kayak, there are three hotel recommendation check boxes in the left column for filtering results by Trip Advisor reviews, Frommer's or Budget Travel picks. Check one box, or all three for super filtered results. {Trip Styler Tip :: As of Friday, March 9th, Kayak added Jetsetter and Travel+Leisure recommendations to above list as well.}

It's like having a friend or hotel expert from Frommer's or Budget Travel help you decide which hotel is the right fit for your trip style = ........

How It Works

1. Go to kayak.com and enter a destination and date range.
2. Once the results appear, click one of the hotel recommendation filters on the left column.
3. Search results are then filtered based on recommendations from your selection{s}---Frommer's, Budget Travel or 60,000 million+ Trip Advisor ratings---rendering a massive list of possible results, manageable AND informed.
4. Further constrain results by filtering price, stars, location and hotel brands.

Hotel research crisis averted.

More Tech Tuesday STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix Dashboard To Wall Hotel Tonight

[img via kayak]

Tech Tuesday :: Promo Codes

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Notice how any time you check out online---be it for a flight, hotel stay or jacket purchase---there's a promo code input box?

It's a love/hate thing. I love these little blank boxes when I have a discount code to insert, and hate them when I'm checking out sans 10%, 20% or 30% discount. Urg, savings of what could have been.

The Solution Google to the rescue. For example, if you're about to click "buy" on an Air Canada flight to London and you see an empty promo code box; stop! Open a new window and Google "Air Canada promo codes." When I do this type of search , 60% of the time I score relevant promo codes through sites like RetailMeNot. The worst case scenario is the code you find and insert doesn't work. A for effort and only one minute of your day is lost!

Why Using promotional channels like website landing pages, email, Twitter and Facebook, airlines and hotels are always publishing semi-secret discount codes. Take 10 seconds to Google "<insert airline or hotel name here> promo code"  and you could save yourself a good chunk of change, especially if you're about to buy an international flight or multi-night hotel stay.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

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[img by @tripstyler]

Tech Tuesday :: Trading Miles

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Top-up your main airline mileage reward program with orphan miles. Let me explain:

We're all for consolidating airline mileage reward points with one alliance, but occasionally it's not possible. Case in point, as I look for flights to Thailand not one of the carriers I want to fly---due to flight schedule and price---is part of my preferred alliances: Star Alliance or One World.

{Trip Styler Tip: Most airlines are part of global airline alliances. For example, Air Canada is part of Star Alliance, so if I fly Air New Zealand, US Airways, United, Turkish, or Lufthansa to name only a few, I can apply the points to my Air Canada mileage account and accrue a free trip faster.}

Last year I lost 16,000 KLM points because 'dealing with them' seemed 'too complicated' before they expired. To put this in perspective, the airmiles I lost are equivalent to a one-way domestic trip on points, or to put it another way, the approximate amount of miles I flew from Vancouver to Australia {pictured above}. #Fail

This year I wasn't going to let that happen again. A few weeks ago my mileBlaster iPhone app notified me I had 15,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles expiring, so I  posted the trade details via Point.com: 15,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles for 13,000 American Airlines miles. Turns out, another points.com user was interested. After a transaction fee of $150, the transfer was complete. The fee isn't ideal, in fact it's downright annoying, but this top-up provides me the total amount of American Airlines points I need to fly from Vancouver to the Caribbean in the late fall. #Win

The Take-Away

• Sort through all the miles you have with each airline to determine if you can fly somewhere for free.
• If you've got miles you know you won't use, try and trade them into a mileage program you can use.
• Using the Points.com trading system takes about 10 minutes once you add your airline account info.
• For every 1000 miles you trade via points.com, you are charged $10, hence my fee of $150 for trading 15,000 miles. Note, you are not charged the trading fee if nobody wants to make the trade.

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[photo by via points.com and @tripstyler]