Most travel apps have a lifespan of about 18 months before they’re acquired, pivoted, or quietly shut down. The exceptions tend to be the ones that solved a real problem so cleanly the first time that nothing has replaced them since. Tripit is one of those. Twenty years after launching in 2006, it still does one thing better than anything else. It turns the chaos of forwarded confirmation emails into a single, organized travel itinerary you can actually find when you need it.
That is super helpful when you book a long trip for you and your family, for example: several flight and train tickets, 2 and more hotel rooms or different hotels, museum bookings, next town – repeat.
Tripit can help organize this mess. The company is celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2026. The numbers are quietly impressive — more than 22 million travelers now use the app, which has hosted over 210+ million itineraries and tracked over 240 billion miles flown over two decades, according to Tripit’s own milestone report. This Locals Insider review covers how the app works, the free vs Pro split, current ratings, and whether the $49/year Pro upgrade earns its keep.
What is the TripIt App
Tripit was founded in San Francisco in 2006 by three travel-industry tech founders — Andy Denmark, Gregg Brockway, and Scott Hintz. The company was acquired by Concur Technologies in 2011, and when SAP acquired Concur in 2014 for $8.3 billion, Tripit came with it. It now operates under SAP Concur but retains its original brand and product.
The core premise is unchanged from day one: forward confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and the app builds a master itinerary. Flights, hotels, car rentals, transfers, restaurant reservations, event tickets — anything with a confirmation email gets parsed and slotted into place. The free tier alone is genuinely useful: a mobile itinerary, nearby place suggestions, neighborhood safety scores, calendar sync, and flight delay compensation alerts via AirHelp.
How Tripit Works
The whole setup is built around three steps:
- Forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. Send flight confirmations, hotel reservations, car hire agreements, transfer bookings, restaurant reservations — anything with a date and a time. Tripit parses each one and adds it to your trip.
- Receive a comprehensive itinerary organized by day. Access your details on the go, share with your travel companions, or sync to your calendar app (Google, Apple, Outlook).
- Download the mobile app for iOS or Android, and optionally pair it with your smartwatch so notifications appear on your wrist.
The genius of Tripit isn’t any one feature — it’s that you stop having to remember where you put what. Frequent travelers describe it the same way: once you’ve used it for a single trip, going back to scrolling through your email for a booking number feels archaic.
Pricing: How Much Does Tripit Cost?
Tripit is free to download and use, and the free tier covers what most casual travelers actually need. Tripit Pro runs $49/year (with a 30-day free trial) and adds genuinely useful features for frequent flyers:
- Trackers: Seat tracker (alerts you when a better seat opens up), fare tracker (notifies you of price drops on your route after you book — sometimes worth a refund or credit), and point tracker for 150+ travel rewards programs.
- Inner circle: Auto-shares your travel plans with a pre-set group of family, friends, or colleagues.
- Document management: Add photos, QR codes, and PDFs to your trip. Set a reminder when it’s time to renew your passport.
- Flight updates: Real-time status alerts, alternate flight suggestions when yours is canceled, check-in reminders, and risk alerts for potential disruption.
- Interactive maps: Airport terminal maps with walking directions to your gate, lounges, or favorite eateries.
- Arrival intel: Gate details, connecting flight information, and baggage claim carousel updates on landing.
Pro pays for itself quickly if you fly more than a few times a year — even a single fare-drop refund can cover the annual cost.
Tripit Free Pan, Bonuses & Coupon Offers
Tripit doesn’t run flashy promotional codes, but a few legitimate routes to discounted or free access are worth knowing:
- 30-day free trial of Tripit Pro: Available through the Tripit website (not always through in-app purchases). Use it to test fare tracker, flight alerts, and airport maps on a single real trip before committing — the value becomes obvious quickly or it doesn’t.
- $10 off Pro: Tripit occasionally offers a $10 discount on annual Pro subscriptions, bringing the effective cost to around $39 — roughly 20% off. These codes typically work on both monthly and annual plans, with annual offering the better overall value.
- Employer access through SAP Concur: Tripit’s parent company is SAP Concur, the expense management platform used by thousands of corporate travel programs. If your company uses Concur for travel and expense, you may already have Tripit Pro included. Worth checking with your travel manager before paying personally.
- Webby Award legitimacy: Tripit won the 2026 Webby Award for Apps & Software, Travel — plus the People’s Voice Winner in the same category — adding credibility for anyone still deciding whether the platform is worth investing in.
There’s no permanent free trial of Pro outside the standard 30-day window, but the free tier is so functional that many users never feel the need to upgrade at all.
Tripit App Ratings & Reviews: Is It Worth Downloading?
Tripit holds top-tier ratings across both major app stores:
- App Store: 4.8/5.0 (296,000+ reviews)
- Google Play: 4.6/5.0 (93,800+ reviews)
Reviewers consistently call Tripit the easiest way to consolidate trip information into one place. The free version draws particular praise for being substantively useful (rather than a hobbled teaser for the paid tier), and Pro gets credit for paying for itself through fare-drop alerts and seat tracking.
The criticisms are honest. The user interface is starting to show its age — Tripit was built in 2006 and looks it in places — and the email parsing occasionally misses smaller bookings or weirdly formatted confirmations. The Pro tier also doesn’t include expense tracking, which some frequent business travelers expect at this price point. None of this is a dealbreaker; it’s just where a 20-year-old app shows its years.
One Google Play reviewer, Andrea F., wrote: “This app is intuitive to use and great for keeping trip information orderly and easily accessible on your phone. The Pro version is so worth it. It has paid for itself several times over by notifying me when prices drop on one of my travel plans, and I’ve been able to get a travel credit or refund for the difference.”
Insider tip: Set up Tripit’s auto-import from your email before your next booking, not after. The app can scan your inbox automatically for confirmations going forward, so new bookings drop into your itinerary without you needing to forward anything manually. Two minutes of setup, indefinite payoff.
Best Alternative to Tripit for Trip Planning: Check Out Wanderlog
Tripit is unambiguously the global leader in travel organization — bringing what you’ve already booked into one place. If what you actually want is planning — discovering activities, building an itinerary with friends, mapping a multi-stop trip before you book anything — Wanderlog is the stronger choice.
Wanderlog lets you create detailed itineraries, draw inspiration from user-compiled city guides, and collaborate in real time with travel companions. It’s especially good for finding bars, restaurants, and points of interest near where you’re staying, with map-based visualization that Tripit’s chronological list view doesn’t offer. Wanderlog Pro is slightly cheaper too — $39.99/year vs Tripit’s $49. The honest summary: Tripit organizes what you’ve booked; Wanderlog helps you decide what to book.
Many frequent travelers run both — Wanderlog for the planning phase, Tripit for the trip itself. For broader travel tech coverage, our roundup of the best AI travel planners and our guide to Google Maps alternatives for navigation cover the apps and tools that pair well with Tripit on a real itinerary.
