Even the most well-traveled among us have missed a flight or experienced the heart-stopping feeling of realizing you’re at the wrong gate and have three minutes to find the right one. But this never has to happen if you’ve set up flight alerts, which will help to ensure that your travel is as seamless as it can possibly be.
Flight alerts allow you to sync your flight information to any device’s calendar, get a notification the day before your flight departs, and receive an alert informing you whether your flight is on time, delayed or canceled. They can also keep you up to date on any gate changes—which is great if you’ve been busy shopping in a duty-free store, grabbing lunch or using the bathroom before your flight.
Use Google as your assistant
Google Assistant makes it easy for you to input and find your travel information. It can be downloaded on your phone (iOS, Android) and synced to any smart device (your laptop, TV, watch or smart speaker). In order to use Google Assistant you need to have a Gmail account, which is easy to set up if you don’t have one. Once you have downloaded Google Assistant, turn on your “personal results.” This will personalize the results you receive when you type a query into Google, allowing it to show you flight information pulled from your Gmail, calendar or Google photos.
When you initially download the app it will ask if you want notifications including alerts, sounds and icon badges; you’ll want to select “allow” to ensure you receive those push notifications. Assistant will also ask for permission to make a Bluetooth connection so that you can connect your accessories, including headphones and speakers.
Existing Booking
Through your Google Assistant alert and personal results you will be able to:
See and hear the date, time, origin, destination and airline of your next trip.
See and hear on time/delay status.
You will be able to hear information for up to three upcoming flights. By choosing the microphone icon you can ask or type the inquiry using the keyboard icon. And the response will either be verbal or typed, depending on the setting you’ve chosen.
You can also set an alert by:
Tapping your profile icon
Selecting “services,” then “reminders”
Adding the reminder with the specific day, time, place and if you would like it repeated more than once
Looking for flights
“Personal results” only work for existing flights; however, you can still look for flights and check for them by the region, dates, specific airline and specific destination.
Simply hold down the microphone icon in Google Assistant and begin asking “Hey Google” or “Okay Google,” followed by your exact question. Or you can use the keyboard icon to type the question.
Your airline can alert you
All major airlines have their own apps to keep track of your flight information and flights that you have yet to book. It makes it much more convenient to know what’s happening with your specific airline and have them sent directly through text or email.
American Airlines
From the app, you can set up notifications to send you alerts when you have a flight or multiple flights. AA also allows passengers to send alerts to their friends and family.
You can sign up or change your preferences from the “BeNotified” link in your AAdvantage profile to receive alerts, including:
Delays and cancellations for the day of travel
Reminders for departure
Gate changes
You can also set up alerts for specific flights through the website by inputting the city of departure and arrival, hitting “search” and choosing “get alerts for this flight.”
Delta
Set up alerts in the FlyDelta App as follows:
Open the app and go to “settings”
Open notifications option
Select what you want to to be notified of
These notifications will include tracking your baggage, delivering electronic boarding passes and providing seat, gate and flight information. You’ll want to make sure the push notifications tab is turned on as well.
JetBlue
With the JetBlue app, it’s easy to set up alerts. All you need to do is download the app and make sure you create a user account. The “Flight Tracker” tool allows you to receive alerts through enabling notifications in your settings.
JetBlue also uses a real-time automated system called the Flight Status Notification Tool (FSN-T) that will send emails to the primary customer (the one who did the booking) if there are any changes to your travel itinerary.
Download Flightview
Flightview is a fantastic app that can be downloaded on all Apple and Android devices and is not limited to just one particular airline. From its “By Flight #” flight tracker option you will:
Enter the name or 3-letter code of the airline.
Then input the flight number.
Select the departure date.
Press “track flight” for Flightview to find the available flights for you to track.
You can also track the entire route of the flight through the “By Route” option:
Enter the name or 3-letter code of the departure airport.
Do the same for the arrival city.
Entering the actual airline is optional but helpful.
Put the time of the flight and the date.
Select “track flight” and you’re all set.
This app can give you notifications about flight arrivals and departures, airport delays, weather at a particular destination and parking.
Setting up fare alerts
Flight alerts aren’t just for flights you have already booked. You can also set up alerts to know when the price increases or decreases for a specific flight you are looking to book in the future. Some of the most popular flight price alert sites/apps are Skyscanner and Hopper.
Through these avenues you will receive alerts via email or text message as soon as the price of the flight you’re interested in changes. They can also show you a comparison between different airlines.
Hopper
This particular app will only send your alerts when it’s the best time to buy. It analyzes price trends and tells you when exactly to book. The app developer states that it can predict with 95% accuracy the price of flights up to a year in advance, as based on an analysis of past data.
Enable Hopper notifications iOS:
Go to your iPhone’s settings.
Select notifications, then Hopper.
Tap the switch to green next to “Allow Notifications.”
On Android:
Go to your phone’s settings.
Select notification settings.
Tap the switch under Hopper to turn the notifications on.
Skyscanner
This site/app compares cheap flights to help you find the best deals. Here’s how to set up the fare alerts:
Open the app or desktop homepage.
Search for a flight that you want to track.
Click the bell symbol located on the bottom-left of the app or top-left of your desktop.
Select “Create” and you’ll be alerted of any price changes.