Often travellers have to wait for long hours in airports to catch flights. They can use airport lounges to rest, relax and refresh. In such a scenario, they mostly realise that airport lounges are either too expensive or don’t provide many amenities as per their needs. LoungeBuddy can prove to be a highly useful travel app then.

(Photo Credit: www.mehongkong.com)

LoungeBuddy enables travellers to discover, book and access airport lounges from around the world. Covering 800+ airports, the app allows users to browse through the airport lounges and view photos, amenities and reviews from LoungeBuddy members. To know more about this interesting travel application we spoke with Brent Griffith – the co-founder and marketing guru of LoungeBuddy. Connecting his love for travel and in-depth knowledge of marketing, Brent Griffith developed the unique travel app with his team.

Can you introduce us to your unique travel app ‘LoungeBuddy’?

LoungeBuddy is your answer to finding a place in the airport to relax, be productive, or just get away from it all. Simply tell us about your trip, and our revolutionary Lounge Access Wizard will show you all the lounges (over 2500 in total) you can access at over 800 of the world’s busiest airports. Get your very own personal lounge tour in seconds – view directions, amenities, and over 40k photos, ratings and reviews from our members.

LoungeBuddy isn’t just for VIP travellers.  With instant bookings, all travellers can purchase access to their very own oasis in a few simple taps, all for around US$30 – $45 — no memberships, elite statuses, or premium credit cards required.  No need to book in advance: buy access in less than 60 seconds when you arrive at the airport. The LoungeBuddy app is currently available on both iOS and Android platforms.

How did you come up with the idea of establishing this startup?

Our co-founder and CEO, Tyler Dikman, has spent a lot of time passing through airports during his 31 years on this earth having flown close to 2 million miles already. As global travellers, all of the founders have experienced first-hand the pain of a multi-hour layover at airport terminals. With one out of six air travellers experiencing a significant flight disruption on their journey and 60 percent of trips having a layover, flying can be a less than pleasant experience. Lounges offer so many amenities to help pass the time, be productive, freshen up and relax. We created LoungeBuddy to provide a resource for people to discover, book and access airport lounges around the world. And for those that aren’t part of the “privileged few” in the front of the plane, LoungeBuddy makes it possible to instantly purchase and access an airport lounge in seconds — all from our App. LoungeBuddy came about as a way to help travellers make the most of idle time at the airport, to help whisk them away from the busy concourse to an oasis with complimentary snacks, drinks, maybe showers, and of course, maximum comfort.

Who are the users of your app?

LoungeBuddy members are air travellers hailing from virtually every country in the world. Roughly 60% of our members currently come from the United States, with members from Commonwealth nations making up the next largest contingents. While it comes as no surprise that a significant number of LoungeBuddy members are frequent travellers, particularly business travellers, a growing number of LoungeBuddy members are also casual travellers interested in finding a place to relax before their flight.

What was your early traction?

Upon launch, the LoungeBuddy app was featured on every country’s Apple App Store homepage under “Best New Apps”. It was also selected by Apple’s editors to appear among 55 other apps in the App Store’s “Designed for iOS 7″ section. Since then, LoungeBuddy has been featured on the front page of the Apple App Store numerous times, and has been featured in several locations within the Travel Category front page, including currently “At The Airport” and “Book With Apple Pay”.

LoungeBuddy has been covered in hundreds of publications, including CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, LA Times, Lifehacker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Entrepreneur Magazine, NY Times, Travel + Leisure, The Globe and Mail, Conde Nast Traveler, Daily Mail, Tnooz, and many more. LoungeBuddy recently surpassed a half-million members.

How are you different from others in the fray?

LoungeBuddy is the only product out there that allows instant lounge bookings on a smartphone in 60 seconds or less. In addition, we are the only single resource for airport lounge information – covering over 2,500 lounges in more than 800 of the busiest airports around the world with our patented Lounge Access Wizard.

What are your future plans?

We have big plans for 2016 and beyond. In the next 6 to 12 months, we will work to broaden our network of instant booking partner lounges and continue to invest in making our Lounge Access Wizard the best tool possible for air travellers to discover their perfect airport oasis.

Try out this exemplary travel app and let us know what you think of it. For more details, you can visit its website here.

Also Read: The Airhook: A unique gadget that offers more legroom during air travel

The post Try LoungeBuddy: An app that helps travellers pass time in style in airport lounge appeared first on TravHQ.

The business travel sector of India is experiencing a phenomenal growth in the past few years. According to a report by Global Business Travel Association, the country’s total business travel spending is expected to grow by 9.8% in this year and 10.9% in the next year. Similarly, many other countries are observing significant growth in this sector.

The players of business travel sector have realized the importance of technology and are embracing it at various levels. There are many business travel apps catering to travellers who visit different destinations for professional reasons. We have listed few of them below:

#1 LoungeBuddy

Many times air travel doesn’t happen the way we want! There are flight delays, cancellations, diversions and misconnects. In such situations, the travellers have no option but to spend time in airport lounges. To improve their experience, LoungeBuddy offers information about hundreds of airport lounges world-wide that provide space for relaxation, cocktails, work desk and food joints. The app has relevant details like photos, amenities offered and reviews to help travellers pick lounges of their choice.

Presently some lounges listed on the app do not have photos and reviews but this will improve with more people using the app. It also filters out the available information according on the basis of what lounges you have access to. This app is really worth a try if you are a frequent flyer.

It is available on Android and iTunes.

#2 Trippeo

Trippeo is a travel and expense tracking app with powerful administrative tools, expense workflow management and 24-hour reimbursement feature and a simple user interface. With the help of this app, business travellers can easily record their expenses and also share them with their reporting managers or finance team.

We believe this app might turn travellers’ favourite as it automatically fetches and categorises transactions from the credit cards. The location-based services in it helps travellers know the distance they have covered on road. The app is on Apple Watch as well so you can have the important information available even without pulling out your phone.

It is available on iTunes.

#3 SignEasy

SignEasy is a great tool for people who are always on the go. It allows clients to sign relevant business documents on computer and mobile devices. It has all the features that small businesses might need to close deals at a faster pace. SignEasy eliminates unnecessary paperwork and increases the productivity of the firms. It has already been featured on global brands like Forbes, Mashable, Pandodaily and Engadget.

The user-interface of this app is neat. SignEasy can save you hours of travel at times and thus saving the costs involved. It also allows three people to record their signatures in the app for times when multiple people need to sign the same document.

It is available on Android and iTunes.

#4 Slack

With the mission to make work life simpler, more pleasant and more productive, Slack offers a useful platform for team communication. It allows team members to communicate either in the open channels or send direct messages to each other.

What gives it an edge over other team communication tools is the seamless integration with services like Trello. You can get all the updates right in the Slack channels, minimising the need of tracking multiple platforms. Some users feel the need of GIF support in Slack and we might see it being rolled out soon.

Slack is available on Android and iTunes.

#5 HoursKeeper

With the help of HoursKeeper, the users can easily track the hours they have worked and the cost of work hours. To elaborate, users can record the daily working hours for each client, including the overtime and break-time. PDF timesheet invoices can be generated in HoursKeeper to be sent later to the clients.

The interface could have been a little better but still it is functional. One feature that we would like to see is the ability to have better control over pay periods. At this point, the iOS version appears to be more polished as compared to the Android version.

It is available on Android and iTunes.

What other apps would you like to add to the list?

The post These 5 apps will simplify your business travel appeared first on TravHQ.