I never imagined myself to be an "app" person, considering my preference for the large screen of my desktop PC. Of course, I've been a fan of doing things online ever since I discovered the Internet in 2000 (yes, as late as that!) Still, even though shopping has been a great experience online, what with the convenience and of course, deals, I was a little wary of using apps, primarily because I find my phone screen too small for my eyesight. I find it frustrating to focus on the screen and do things on the tiny keyboard.
An experience with an app a few months ago changed all that and made me a fan of apps. Thanks to touch screens, I enjoy using apps. One of my favorites has got to be the Cleartrip Android app, which I've been using for a while now. My husband is a frequent traveler and naturally I am his personal travel agent. Yes, I also take care of my own bookings and that of my friends and family now.
Let me take you through what the Cleartrip Android app can do.
I downloaded the Cleartrip Android app from the Google Play store (you can, too!) It says 1 million downloads! Popular eh?
The app tempted me with a code to save bucks with instant cashback on my next book after I downloaded it.
Once I had the bright orange button on the home screen of my android tab, I clicked it to go to this page
It offers various options including flights, hotels, weekend getaways, Trains, Buses, Offers and deals. This page also showed my account details comprising of my trips, plans, wallet balance. This section also had "Expressway" that enables one click booking when card details are stored.
The Explore section saves collections and "way to go"
Under this as you can see, there's support, and the other mandatory stuff that websites have such as feedback, rate us, privacy policy and terms of use.
I first checked out flights from Chandigarh to Bangalore, since I am there right now and will be traveling rather often between these two locations for the next few years. I got a long list of options.
Choosing a flight took me to the "review itinerary" page after which I could continue booking.
As usual this took me to the next page where I could add those add-ons like meals, baggage etc.
Next, I looked at weekend getaways. No harm looking right?
This was quite nifty - and produced visual results - places around Bangalore.
I could find destinations nearby as well as places to stay - in short plan my weekend trip. I skipped this option and went on to look at the hotels
There was an almost infinite number of options indicating hotel name, distance and tariff. With photos of the hotel. Easy to choose and book. Hotels can also be sorted based on TripAdvisor ratings - which is the best way to choose a hotel!
I went back to the home page to see what the app would fetch if I clicked hotels when I noticed the "show hotels near me" - the app intuitively fetched my current location and showed me hotels. Who knew Chandigarh had so many hotels? The results had the distance from my current location, tariff and other details about the hotel.
The Cleartrip Android app also has bus and train bookings. For train reservations I can sync my irctc account and book tickets at no extra charges - ticket fare is as listed on irctc.
The offers and deals link from my home page showed plenty of hotels around Chandigarh at decent prices with big discounts.
The Explore - Waytogo option redirected to the web browser with these options
Settings shows offer notifications and trip notifications. Convenient!
Weekend getaways from Bangalore showed location-wise options - practically on infinite scroll. The top right corner of the screen has an icon that lets you set preferences and sort by featured, price and TripAdvisor rating. It also lets you choose type of destination - wildlife, hill station, historical, urban escape, beach, adventure and pilgrimage.
I checked out "hillstation" - and got a range of options indicating distance and time to get there.
The Cleartrip Android app is not just useful to plan trips and accommodation - it is fun to explore. Rather like a mini vacation via my phone. And yes, I expect to be using it a lot to plan my trips! It is easy to navigate and use and loads quite fast - this is particularly crucial with slow connections in some places.
