New Modern Travel Tools of 2024

by Palo · December 4, 2024

As I reflect on the new tools I adopted in 2024, I’d love to share them with you to help you travel smarter. Tools that aren’t consistently maintained or updated can quickly become outdated, creating an opportunity to explore new and improved solutions. Let’s take a look at the 7 new tools:

AeroLOPA: https://www.aerolopa.com/

This tool compliments SeatGuru with very detailed seat maps which are up-to-date. Unfortunately, SeatGuru is out-dated, but still can provide some context as to which seats to avoid. If AeroLOPA implements seat ratings like SeatGuru and a mobile app then they will completely replace SeatGuru.

AeroLOPA

Rooms.aero: https://rooms.aero

This tool compliments MaxMyPoint as you can easily find multi-night hotel award redemptions when a hotel has a minimum nights required such as Park Hyatt Niseko during the winter months. I still prefer the calendar view on MaxMyPoint as a quick visual as to what’s available. Also, MaxMyPoint allows you to set an alert for free. If you are already paying for Seats.aero Pro then you will get Rooms.aero at no additional cost.

Rooms.aero

TrackMySeat: https://trackmyseat.com

This tool allows you to determine the probability of flying on a plane with the latest Business or First Class seats. It’s helpful if you are trying to see ANA’s The Room/Suite (ex. NH8) or JAL’s new A350-1000 (ex. JL44).

TrackMySeat

AwardsPlanner: https://www.awardsplanner.com

This tool allows you to determine the best ways to use your points and miles to book award flights and is more current than AwardHacker. It isn’t used to check availability, but rather guidance on the possibilities of how to use your points.

AwardsPlanner

Venn Diagram of Credit Card Transfer Partners: https://kharsono.streamlit.app

This tool is great if you have points in multiple credit card programs and want to consolidate them into 1 transfer partner or pick the one where you have a surplus of points.

Venn Diagram

eSIMDB: https://esimdb.com

This tool allows you to find compare prepaid eSIM plans for international phone service instead of just relying on Airalo. I used it recently and was able to get 30GB of data for $30 in Japan for 90 days via RedteaGO which is much cheaper than Airalo.