Planely - who is using it - how are you finding it?

[Taezar]

Hi all.
Not sure if this is the right place, but as Planely promotes meetings and social catch ups while flying I thought it might be here.
The idea of Planely is that it talks to Tripit, gets your flight info, then advises you if someone else in the network is flying on the same flight etc.
It sounds good in theory.
I know it is still new, but has anyone had any success with Planely yet?
Given it matches times at airports, flights etc - I thought it might be an easy way for us to cross over and meet up without reading through 10+ pages of a month.
I have two flights coming up with Planely connections and haven't decided yet whether I will interact with them - I am shy after all. Love to hear some feedback.
Oh and before the neo-luddites poopoo it, it is still in beta.
Taez

 

[simongr]

A nice idea and much easier than the meeting thread. Can you restrict people on the network? Does tripit work well with non-QF bookings?

 

[Ewing]

Yep, I've been a member for about a month on there now. I was also going to meet up with someone a few weeks back, but alas my inbound flight was significantly delayed and I ended up stepping off one flight and onto another.

There are two features that I'd like to see:

1. The ability to "friend" people and track when your friends are on flights or even flying on the same day as you (as this might influence flight selection).
2. The ability set a status per flight (eg: lounge spots on offer)

@simongr, mine syncs with TripIt but I've never had a problem with airlines. I have flights on QF, DJ, JQ and AA in there.

As for my matches - out of the ~25 flights I have in there I have matches on 10 of them. Not bad for something so new. Here's a screenshot.

 

[nlagalle]

Nice idea.. I'll give it a whirl..

Simongr I do believe that TripIt works with all the major airline itineraries.

 

[ozmille]

Just created an account to have a play with it. Looks ok. Only thing is that it does not look at terminals so you get people who are in the domestic terminal whilst you are in the international.

 

[Taezar]

Great feedback guys. Will send it through to Planely. The linking with friends (or lack there of) really surprised me - hopefully that is on the cards!
I have sent messages to the two people - asking them who they are flying with - how long in the terminal etc. We will see. Both are female. So if any male travellers would like to meet more women - sign up to Planely as I am clocking 100% female hits at the moment.
Taez
Update: Just connected with AFFers - this is kinda cool. The communication happens via email.

 

[Taezar]

Hi gang
Got a great email from the folks at Planely last night.

They are looking at "badging" companies/associations so you can instantly see there is someone in your network in the same airport / on the same flight.

They have also registered for an account here which I think is brilliant that they are interested in lil Australia. Then again according to their Planely survey on airlines, Australia figured quite highly. Also as Australia is quite an early adoptor of mobile technology it makes good sense.

Hope a few more of you try it and see how it goes.

I had to manually put all my flights into Tripit (which was suggested after I booked two weekends away on the same week) and am loving it- the integration with Planely is cool. I have since linked up with another AFFer and we are meeting while we are transiting - super cool! I think Planely has a solid base from which to build and improve.

Taez

 

[simongr]

You can email tripit you itinerary directly from the QF manage my booking page - I do it for all my flights. Also forwarding the e ticket works too. saves entering it all in manually. I know it also works with JQ tickets too.

Nick

Great tip Nick - seems now to be working. In fact I had added my CX itinerary by forwarding my booking for the CX flight.

So now Tripit has my upcoming three trips- planely is current only showing my trip this week which is domestic...

 

[Ewing]

Great tip Nick - seems now to be working. In fact I had added my CX itinerary by forwarding my booking for the CX flight.

So now Tripit has my upcoming three trips- planely is current only showing my trip this week which is domestic...

Planely only does a sync when you login. Try logging out and back in again

 

[simongr]

Planely only does a sync when you login. Try logging out and back in again

Great that's worked for planely - it mirrors Flight Track pro so has my QF and LAN bookings.

 

[Taezar]

Thanks Shaun
I am still having some issues with Tripit - which is why I entered it all in manually.
You see I set it up on line w facebook connect, but can't actually log in without facebook - I sent my bookings on that account. So it wouldn't register when I set up another account via an email address.
I then merged the accounts and still can't log in without facebook connect - so no app loving.
I have sent off a help to their support desk and hope to hear from them soon - I love the RSS feed to my iCal - DEVINE!
Add in the fact that I keep seeing more and more connections on my planely flights and I am totally digging this new fangeled technology!
Go the interwebs!

 

[Fantic125]

<snip>
I'm a little hesitant about Planely. (I don't tend to like people at the best of times so the privacy issue is something that concerns me.) :-|

I'm guessing you work in HR then?

 

[Taezar]

I'm guessing you work in HR then?

I work in HR and like people - crazy I know...

 

[benmay]

I like the idea of it - but like a lot of new start up sites, there ain't many people using it.

I always keep to keep bumping into Ewing, but that's all!

I've found it's pretty bare bones in terms of functionality, hopefully it will take off a little bit and they'll work on it some more

 

[LiamR]

Just signed up. I have to remember to add all my flights to Tripit.

Just added the upcomming F Lounge run, waiting for the flights on planely to load up so I can see anyone else who has registered on it.

 

[Mal]

A typical "Generation little-privacy" application.

Privacy functions are extremely lacking. As an application it is in VERY early beta stage.

Good luck to them, but still very undecided how I will use the application.

And yes, I've signed up and imported JQ35.

 

[LiamR]

I've added all my flights over the next month into Tripit, and had them all show up in planely, was quite suprised at the number of matches for such a new product. Would be nice as discussed earlier to see an AFF network set up so we can all track each other.

A typical "Generation little-privacy" application.
Privacy functions are extremely lacking. As an application it is in VERY early beta stage.

Well, as the OP said, this is a replacement to writing it in a thread, which is just as public as planely. In my eyes its definatly an improvement, would be interesting to have an iPhone app push me a notification if someone in my network is around. Ie. "Misha is sitting in the J lounge waiting his flight to MEL, go say Hi!" that could come up as I either land/fly out of Sydney... I think it would be very popular.

Also... I've been asked to write a news article on this product, so if I could have as much input from other AFFers as possible, with suggestions or comments, would help to get a broad view of what people think.

 

[Taezar]

Also... I've been asked to write a news article on this product, so if I could have as much input from other AFFers as possible, with suggestions or comments, would help to get a broad view of what people think.

Email nick c/o the groundcontrol email address on the site. he is very chatty

 

[nlagalle]

Also... I've been asked to write a news article on this product, so if I could have as much input from other AFFers as possible, with suggestions or comments, would help to get a broad view of what people think.

I think there certainly needs to be privacy options. In Tripit if a trip is marked as private then it shouldn't show up on Planely.

 

[Mal]

Have done some more playing around with Planely and added in more flights.

Haven't received the email message I was sent by someone here, but I think that was because the "surname" I was using may have broken email functionality. Have changed it to something more palatable for email systems. (And not going to use my real surname anyway on the site. I like some privacy).

Speaking of privacy, there's nothing stopping people browsing the various flights. So technically I could build the entire flight information that someone has posted.

There are additional privacy issues - for example if I send a comment to someone, they get my email address. Not something I want. Also, the way it is done (by sending "from" me to "receipient", but not coming from my email server) will mean some ISPs and email providers will either delete the message or treat it as spam.

(A better implementation would be to either send it from Planely "no-return" account and any response you want to send you enter into the application - or they set up email aliases at Planely where people can email, or PM type chatting is integrated directly into the application).

MEL is difficult to add as an airport. The long delay after entering the destination airport is frustrating too (it does the flight look-up and hangs while doing that.) The flight database lookups need to be coded to be faster.

The "matches" should be displayed better. Perhaps icons to represent "flight" and "departure airport" and "destination airport" with numbers next to them.

And I agree with the earlier comment that terminals at airports need to be defined better. Wow, there's a guy in the domestic terminal 45 mins later than I depart my International flight.

Also, if you're on a 2 sector flight (EG QF1 SYD-BKK-LHR) and you enter in QF1 SYD-LHR, it won't identify pax who only entered SYD-BKK that are on your flight (You may get them identified as being at your start or destination airports though).

Needs a lot more work - especially around privacy (this was a huge failure when Facebook originally was designed).