My favorite travel apps & sites
Google Flights
Start your search on Google Flights. It will quickly tell you airlines, flights, and prices. Its calendar function shows the cheapest days to fly to your destination. If you have dates, but no destination picked, select "United States" for your destination and Google Flights will pull up a map of select cities in your price range.
Point.me
Point.me is my go-to points search engine. The service scours the airlines for award availability to show what's available on your searched dates. It will even give you step-by-step instructions on how to book it once you've chosen it. The site costs $12.95 each month (as of 03/22/2023), but has saved me hundreds just this year.
AwardWallet
AwardWallet allows me to track and manage any type of loyalty account - most importantly, credit card and airline points and miles. It offers an easy-to-use dashboard that stores all my travel assets in one place, helping me to get a better understanding of my point wealth, so I can make strategic decisions when booking awards.
I also use the Merchant Category Lookup Tool to make sure I'm using the best card at that retailer. The Credit Card Spend Analysis report shows me where I could have gotten a better deal with a different card. Although I prefer TripIt to track my itineraries, AwardWallet has a pretty good one, too; it automatically adds flight itineraries and sends reminders and status updates.
If you use my coupon free-3y31pm8vz3, you can get a free upgrade after registering.
TripIt
After I book a flight, hotel, or activity, I forward the itineraries to my TripIt account. It pulls all the information into an itinerary for me. It syncs to my calendar and allows everyone in the family to have everyone's flight information. With my TripIt Pro account, I get real-time flight alerts, check-in reminders, airfare price drop notifications, and seat tracking, too.
I recently got a text from my TripIt Pro account telling me the price had dropped for my upcoming Southwest flight to Kansas City. I quickly logged into Southwest and was able to shave $12 of a different trip to Albuquerque that's coming up. Just this feature alone pays for the Pro subscription to TripIt.