NOTE: an update on TripIt’s confirmation of the bug and response.
A word to the wise — don’t rely on TripIt for your travel details.
Up until yesterday I was a big fan of TripIt. Their sign-up process was awesome, and it’s been a great way to keep track of my flight and accommodation details. It syncs with LinkedIn, which helps me keep in touch with my network. I know a number of people that use this service regularly.
Last night I was due to return from Melbourne (another uni trip). I was all set — I’d checked in prior, selected my seat, and was about to head off from one of my fave cafes when I checked the details of my flight in TripIt on my iPhone and realised that I actually had an hour to spare. So I dropped into Degraves for a lovely dinner and wine before heading out to the airport.
I only had to print my boarding pass and jump on the plane to get home. Or so I thought. Upon arriving I went to the mobile check-in and was informed I had to see the service desk. I’ve had seats reshuffled before, and assumed that there was some small thing like that. Alas, I found out that I was an hour late for my flight.
I rechecked the details and went back to my original itinerary only to find that I had, in fact, missed my flight. The first available flight was first thing this morning, so I had to arrange last minute overnight accommodation as well. Total cost: just over $300.
Thinking that I’d incorrectly entered the details, or that TripIt’s famous auto-entry feature had got the details wrong, I checked into the TripIt website. Going to the main TripIt website, my flight details are shown correctly:
So then, looking into it further, I rechecked the iPhone app and confirmed the time was incorrectly stated (note that the morning flight displays the correct time):
I acknowledge that perhaps I missed something to do with timezones and the like, but the only conclusion that I can come to is that it’s a bug there…
In hindsight there are a number of things I could’ve done to avoid this problem. If I’d checked my itinerary when I noticed the discrepancy. If I’d looked into my booking details on the airline website, or checked flight delays, perhaps I would have picked up the problem. But the whole point of using TripIt, and especially the iPhone app, is to have one trusted location for travel information. That trust has well and truly been broken.
I’ve reported this bug to TripIt and have asked them to clarify their position with regards to errors like this. I don’t expect to get much of a response (something along the lines of “our terms and conditions state that you use this at your own risk). But needless to say, I won’t be using TripIt in future.
I just hope this can serve as a warning for anyone else that’s using the app to avoid the same scenario.
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