Everything You Need to Know About … Tripit
For an adviser to retirement plans, travel comes with the territory. Unfortunately, keeping track of reservations and itineraries, plus terminal and seat numbers, can be frustrating. From bad traffic and weather to cancelled flights and gate changes—or, perhaps worst of all, unpredictable Wi-Fi—getting from office to client can often feel like more work than managing clients’ plans.
TripIt, a service from Concur—a business travel- and expense-support company—compiles all relevant documentation into a master itinerary that can be accessed on any mobile device, then saved for review regardless of Internet connectivity. Use TripIt Pro to receive real-time alerts of plan changes, to search for alternate flights with open seats, and to keep track of reward program points and miles. Set seat alerts to find out when specific spots open up—and avoid getting caught in a middle seat at the back of the plane. The Flight Refunds feature tracks fare changes and will send a notification if a credit or refund may be available.
How It Works
First, create a TripIt account by typing in your email
address and a secure password. The basic service is free, while TripIt Pro
offers a 30-day free trial before charging an annual subscription fee of $49.
After making reservations—for flights, hotels, car rentals, restaurants and
even entertainment—forward those confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com.
Alternatively, an optional automatic import feature allows you to link TripIt
to a Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo! Mail or Outlook.com inbox.
After connecting, TripIt scans the primary inbox of the selected email account for travel plans several times each day; confirmation emails, if found, are then sent to TripIt and incorporated into the master itinerary. For all travel-related emails that TripIt receives—whether sent manually or automatically—the program will add new reservations to existing trips with overlapping dates, or, if the plan is new, TripIt will create a new itinerary.
Users may set up the auto-import feature from the home page of the website or the program’s mobile application (app), which is available for iOS and Android devices. After users enter their email account information, depending on their account type, they may need to grant access and/or provide the account’s password. Note: TripIt will scan linked accounts for all travel mailings, even those from past trips. To avoid including last year’s information on this year’s agenda, make sure to delete old emails so only upcoming plans are available.
Once an itinerary has been established, set up Calendar Feed to display travel plans in a preferred calendar app. Individual users can enable this feed via a mobile app or the TripIt website, but an adviser team can also opt to share a group agenda. The pricing for TripIt for Teams varies according to the number of members within a firm, and a discount for TripIt Pro is available. For smaller advisory firms, a basic team plan will cover from less than 10 up to 100 members, but practices with more than 100 employees must contact TripIt directly to set up a program.
Use TripIt for Teams to create individual agendas and track costs for each traveler, to build a central dashboard for trip planners to see upcoming schedules and overall spending, and to add and edit plans for any itinerary. Set up groups to divide team members by department, title or any other designation; they can then view a comprehensive calendar of when and where they and their colleagues are going and how they are getting there.
TripIt’s suite of services can support individual advisers or multioffice teams in simplifying their travel plans, enabling them to stay focused on retirement plans.