The Right to Share Personal Travel Data

There are differing opinions in the travel industry about whether your reward program accounts should be accessible to third parties to whom you’ve given permission. Unfortunately, this is impacting point tracking for TripIt Pro users.

In line with TripIt’s mission to make life easier for travelers, our goal is to give you secure access to as many of your reward programs as possible, in one place. 

What can you do? Declare your right to share your personal travel data with third parties, like TripIt. Make your voice heard by contacting your airline reward program; and by joining the conversation below, on Facebook, and Twitter using hashtag #freemypoints.

TripIt, on behalf of travelers everywhere, will continue to drive conversations with travel-industry partners towards a solution that works for everyone. 

In the meantime, we’re focused on growth and new features:

• We’ve expanded TripIt Pro’s point tracker to 120 reward programs, including air, hotel, transportation, parking, dining and credit card rewards.
• TripIt Pro users can now add new programs to their account from their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch (coming soon to Android).

By the traveler, for the traveler,

The TripIt team

 

Comments

[Mike T]

If I choose to allow my United points to be tracked within TripIt Pro, then it should be allowed. These are my points that I earned and would like to track them in a sensible place (with the rest of my points from other vendors)!!! This is taking a step backwards...

[Dave Asprey (The Bulletproof Coffee Guy)]

Come on Tripit - haven't you heard of screen scraping? United can't stop me from running an app on MY device that logs in to United's web page (not API) and access MY info. So give me that app and tell United to go screw themselves. It's not like they upgrade their 1K members very often anyway.

[Myke]

I agree with Mike T. Let me make the decision, they have monetary value and are my earnings.

[Brad Shantz]

I actually don't care. I use the United App for my boarding pass, etc. I use Tripit for keeping track of EVERYTHING on all of my travels for hotel, car, plane, etc. Since Tripit doesn't handle my boarding passes, and doesn't actually provide services related to my MileagePlus points, this doesn't bother me.

[David T]

It is frustrating that all these vendors are taking away this access. I want an easy way to track my rewards without having to go to 10 different sites. I prefer to see it all in TripIt.

[Matt Barnard]

#freemypoints
PLEASE

[Rick Gerber]

I'm a Platinum American Airlines traveler. For me, it's all about convenience. As a busy traveler, I can't waist my time checking all my travel programs. It boils down to customer service and respect - which it appears that American and Untied Airlines don't understand when it comes to sharing data - especially when I am willing to give them permission. Hopefully they'll figure it out sooner than later!

[Mark]

Why not instead have the TripIt App be able to use OAuth to get the information. No need to have tripit.com be the intermediary...

[Mark]

I believe the reason for the airlines putting increasing limits on this has nothing to do with privacy. They feel free to share your personal info when it suits THEM. They just don't want to allow it when doing so makes it easier for the
customer to actually track their reward points more easily because they rely on a lot of those points not getting used. This is how they are able to offer more perceived value without having to deliver on it. It's like when companies offer "rebates" knowing that only less than 35% of those rebates actually end up getting paid out, but the company benefits from advertising the post rebate price to attract customers. Or like the "missed meal factor" that the food service industry relies on with their college and university contracts, where they count on you missing a certain number of meals when you by a meal plan (which is why your meal card is not transferable even when you voluntarily miss a meal). I have as much of a problem with them taking this away from us, as I do with them lying (oops, I mean "spinning" the reason for it. They spin it as a "security and privacy" issue. It's not. It's a profits issue.

[Latitudes]

This decision by United is similar to AA stopping AwardWallet.com from accessing the points of its members. I think that if I authorize someone else to access my airlines points, it is not of the business of the airlines to whom I do so, and only alienates the airlines that try to prevent me.

I've been increasingly disparaged with United Airlines since their merger with Continental Airlines; this decision by them puts another weight on the scale against them give me another reason to walk away.

[Kristi Griffin]

I need access to my program from whomever I give permission. It's time for United to help me.

[Chad]

This was THE reason I signed up for TripIt Pro and the feature is well worth it. I'm logging a lot of miles and I was fed up and sick of having 15 different username/password combos for all of the different programs what with different password formats, PINs etc. My company has standardized on Concur/TripIt and this is a huge step backwards from United. If this stands I'll switch my airline preference.

[Scott]

Tracking my United Miles on TripIt is not important for me... I never look at them there... I dont see the benefit.

[Paulmadsen]

@Mark, Oauth is the preferred mechanism by which TripIt would authenticate to United et al in order to access your mileage but it cant make United choose to open its APIs up to TripIt. It's not some service , it's a protocol that United & TripIt would use

[Scott]

I pretty much only flight United. Without this feature I see less value of using the pro version of Tripit.

[Jeisensc]

United is following Southwest and American Airlines. American replied to my tweet that they deny third parties (ed. except those they partner with like Cartera and Rewards Network) to protect the integrity of their website and AAdvantage:

https://twitter.com/AmericanAir/status/278229033790078976

I understand if they required known third parties to register for access to data and sign some kind of business agreement, but the current behavior is not in the customer's best interest, it's in theirs.

[John Mark Mitchell]

@Latitudes, I agree with your statement. I too have become more and more disappointed with United since its merger with Continental.

They continue to take decisions that communicate that customers are not important.

United staff, if you do care to read this, please work with the likes of Tripit to help us see the value of being loyal to your company.

[Morrison]

This must have been one of the decisions made by the former United Airlines people. The Continental Airlines people understood the concept of serving customers the way they wanted to be served rather than what was easy for them.

[Traveler]

TripIt Pro is a paid service that provides me opportunity to keep certain information readily available for my PERSONAL use. It is not public information and not publicly available. To not be able to track my awards, travel membership numbers, and other pertinent information does not allow me to be a "smart" traveler, or to be able to be agile when needed.

United is joining others who want the traveling public avoid their services by not supporting those companies/services that enhance the traveling experience. Travel is becoming more and more difficult and with so many choices out there... United goes further and further down the list... a bad move by United.

[Frequent flier]

This really annoys me. I love having all my travel info available in one place. This is just one more reason for me to avoid United.

[Christy]

I prefer to have all the Rewards activity in one place -- kudos to TripIt for pursuing this feature....why does it matter to the airlines, hotels, anyway? Please bring back this feature.

[David Radcliffe]

@TripIt - At the very least, you should allow us to manually add and track miles for programs that you cannot automatically sync with. This would still provide some value to me, a paying customer. Otherwise there's really no reason to keep paying.

[Call Recording]

Nice, and thanks for sharing this info with us.

[Becoming a unfrequent flyer!]

I just do not understand how one, like a huge corporation, can think that they must control how the single individual must organize their life. I like simplicity!!! I do not like having to look on 10 to 15 different web sites just to keep track of my mileage, award points, etc., etc. It would take all day!!!!! I have better things to do than to remember all the sign on and passwords and then to spend the time to scroll through the web sites just to find the info I am looking for. It is annoying!!! I thought that one company was being a bit annoying and mean spirited, but now the rest of you have to follow?!?!?!? Give me a break!!! Tripit was making life easier for those of us with busy schedules. I really, really, really liked having my points all in one place! I like simplicity!!!! Get with it United, American, and all the others!!! If I said that Tripit could keep track of my miles then let it be!!!

[Paul Cornish]

I wrote to United, here is their reply. Their request sounds reasonable to me. I hope Tripit enters the agreement.

Dear Mr. Cornish:

Thank you for contacting United Airlines;  I appreciate your patience
and apologize for the delay in our response.

United issued cease and desist letters to certain mileage management
companies that market to MileagePlus members. We encourage each of these
organizations seeking to extract data from united.com on behalf of our
customers to enter into a formal agreement with United in order to
ensure compliance with the Terms, Conditions, and Legal Notices
contained on united.com. United is happy to explore these formal
partnerships. In fact, we already have a relationship with one such
organization - UsingMiles.

We appreciate this opportunity to respond to your concerns. As a Premier
Gold, your loyalty is greatly valued and we look forward to the
privilege of serving you again.

Regards,

James Sugiyama
Corporate Customer Care