Digital Traveler: 4 apps that help manage your itinerary

You booked your flight to Seattle a couple of months ago on an airline website, chose a hotel last week from an online travel agency and tacked on a car rental yesterday from a travel agency.

With the trip coming up in three weeks, how are you going to keep track of all the confirmation numbers, schedules and costs? And what if you decide to modify the trip at the last minute?

There's no need to panic, hunt through e-mail or rifle through piles of file folders to retrieve your documents. Several itinerary management mobile apps, including those from WorldMate, TripIt, TripCase and Kayak, are available to help you handle the organizational efforts.

These apps — most of which are available on a variety of mobile phones and on your computer, too — let you combine reservations from disparate sources into one itinerary. That way you can easily access all of your trip details before you hit the road, during the journey and after you return home.

And if you want to keep people informed, these apps give you the option of letting you broadcast your trip plans on social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to keep family, friends or colleagues apprised of your planned whereabouts.

Each app has a "pro" version for a subscription fee.

Details on the four:

TripIt

Overview: The TripIt app for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7.5 crafts a single itinerary from flight, hotel and car rental booking confirmations, which are e-mailed to plans@tripit.com. Optionally, it scans your Gmail or Google apps inbox for new confirmations.

Pros: TripIt neatly lets you access all your current and past reservations. Maps are integrated to provide airport directions and terminal layouts. TripIt Pro, available for a $49 annual fee, provides text or e-mail flight alerts with delays, cancellations, gate changes and baggage claim information.

Cons: The $49 annual fee for TripIt Pro is pricey compared with others.

Takeaway: A solid app, especially popular in the U.S., which TripIt supplements with e-mails about which friends are traveling or have upcoming trips.

WorldMate

Overview: The WorldMate app for BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7.5 and higher organizes flights, hotels, car rentals, other ground transportation and meetings, and integrates them into a single itinerary. You can search LinkedIn contacts. Trips can be created by e-mailing reservation confirmations to trips@worldmate.com.

Pros: WorldMate has more tools — including LinkedIn connections, restaurant and nightlife search from Yelp, a currency converter, a tip calculator and weather forecasts — in its free app than its competitors.

Cons: The Windows Phone version of the app doesn't let users edit trips on the phone. But they can do it on the Web to update on the app.

Takeaway: This was my favorite of the four apps because of the abundance of free tools and the ability to view nearby LinkedIn connections.

TripCase

Overview: TripCase for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry from Sabre Holdings lets you combine your flight, hotel and rental car bookings into a single itinerary.

Pros: Users can e-mail bookings to trips@tripcase.com. If you have booked through any of about 600 travel agencies, including Travelocity, tied into the Sabre distribution system, your itinerary will automatically be imported. It has an attractive feature enabling you to search and call the original airline if you want to change your flight.

Cons: TripCase isn't very social. You can share your itinerary with your e-mail contacts but not on a social network.

Takeaway: A viable choice, especially if you've booked through a Sabre-connected agency. But if you like to share your travels, TripCase isn't the optimal choice.

Kayak

Overview: The My Trips feature of the Kayak app for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone 7.5 or higher enables users to forward e-mail booking confirmations to trips@kayak.com for consolidated flight, hotel and car rental itineraries.

Pros: If you book your hotel on Kayak.com or the app, instead of with a third party, your reservation is automatically imported into My Trips. Kayak Pro, which lets you track flight status and view maps for more than 100 airports, costs only 99 cents for the download, with no additional subscription fees.

Cons: Because My Trips isn't Kayak's core focus, it isn't as rich in features as some of its competitors.

Takeaway: If you're a regular Kayak user and book your hotels through Kayak, it makes sense to use My Trips. Otherwise, there are better choices out there.

Is there a product, app or website you'd like the Digital Traveler to review? Send us an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com.