Originally, I was an incredibly happy AT&T customer who was “grandfathered” into keeping my unlimited data (which is rather rare). I loved their service and never dreamed of switching until I moved to Boston and quickly discovered that the only place with absolutely zero service was in my apartment. This was a huge problem considering I work remotely from home. After some research, I switched to T-Mobile over a year ago and never looked back. Here are the top features that make my traveling lifestyle that much easier:

Unlimited Data, Text, and Calls

Every person on my T-Mobile Simple Choice plan gets 10 GB of high speed LTE data per month for themselves. If they go over that threshold then the speed slightly drops and they still continue with unlimited data. If there is any unused data then “rollover data” saves the day and that gets rolled over to the next month. Additionally, there is an option for Data Stash depending on when you start T-Mobile service. In my specific case, I have 20 GB of “stashed data” that I can use anytime within a one-year period if I rifle through my 10 GB LTE data too quickly. After 15 months of T-Mobile service, I’ve yet to experience reduced data speed. Now get ready for this: streaming music from services like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, etc. does not count toward your data usage nor does video streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, YouTube, etc. Essentially all of the major data juggernaut apps are completely free using T-Mobile. #micdrop

This unlimited data includes a personal hotspot, which I utilize frequently. I answer work e-mails in cars, buses, trains, coffee shops—you name it—using my hotspot!

UPDATE: Shortly after publishing this post both my husband and I received this text message. Please note that this is NOT a sponsored post–only my personal recommendation.

International Coverage

This is by far my favorite feature about my T-Mobile service. While I’m home in the US I have unlimited calls, text, and data. This is also honored when I’m traveling in Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico.

Remember the days of needing to call AT&T and purchase an expensive “international data plan” for any upcoming trips abroad? Yeah, that’s completely unnecessary with T-Mobile. They provide international coverage in over 140 countries. The majority of that coverage includes unlimited text and data and calls at $0.20 per minute. Guys, it’s INSANE. It completely removes the need to get another SIM card and thus saves you the hassle of changing your phone number while in another country. Not only that, the service is great! I’ve used this fabulous feature several times in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Spain, Croatia, Czech Republic, Brussels, Canada, and Puerto Rico. T-Mobile even sends me reminder text messages about my service and rates in the particular country after I turn on my phone when I land. I like saving the texts because it’s like having my own personal T-Mobile passport. Typically speeds range, but this summer T-Mobile made unlimited 4G LTE available across all of Europe.

Wi-Fi Calling

If you’re in an area or a particular building that does not have solid T-Mobile coverage, then there is always the option to make phone calls or send text messages over Wi-Fi. Apparently when I first switched, this was only available with T-Mobile service, but I’m not sure if it’s expanded within the past year or not. Anyway, this feature is compatible with the majority of popular smartphones on the market and only requires a one-time setup in your phone’s Settings in order to connect. It’s genius. I particularly use it if I’m staying in a very rural area or in my hotels abroad. So that $0.20 per minute for international calling? Essentially zero as long as you are connected to Wi-Fi. Brilliant.

Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi

This change is more recent as I used to think I was an absolute baller when T-Mobile offered free inflight texting on any flights that offered Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi. However, they’ve now upped the ante. Not only do you get free inflight texting, but this also includes iMessage, Whatsapp, Viber, etc. T-Mobile also comps one free hour of Wi-Fi per flight for you to surf the web however you like that offers Gogo. That means if I’m flying with American from Detroit to Fort Lauderdale but with a connection in Charlotte, then I get two free hours of Wi-Fi for that trip: one on each flight.

You may also be wondering how inflight texting works. This is possible thanks to the T-Mobile Wi-Fi calling feature we just discussed.

Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi options

Even More Perks

In case all of that wasn’t enough, there are lots of other non-travel related perks that T-Mobile offers. For instance, my husband’s new favorite day of the week is Tuesday. This summer T-Mobile Tuesdays launched and it’s T-Mobile’s day of the week that they give away free stuff to all of their customers. Yes, every single week you can claim up to three different gifts. These free gifts include, but are not limited to:

• Shares of T-Mobile stock (currently valued around $46 per share)
• VUDU movie rentals
• Domino’s pizza
• $15 Lyft rides
• Movie tickets
• Wendy’s Frosty
• Subway 6 inch sandwich
• E-books
• T-Mobile t-shirt
• Unlimited data for Pokémon Go
• And more…

It’s really cool to do business with a company that truly values you and makes it a habit to continually show their appreciation for your loyalty.

The post Why T-Mobile is the Best Carrier for Traveling appeared first on Seize the Globe.

Like anything else, travel apps come in a very wide range of quality and usefulness. It can be difficult to navigate just which ones are worthwhile and which ones are completely worthless. I have narrowed my favorite and most used travel apps into this top five list. I highly recommend each and every one of them based on legitimate personal experience.

OnTheFly by ITA Software

This travel app is based on the juggernaut of all airfare search engines, ITA Matrix. I can’t even begin to touch on how beautiful of a software this is within one simple blog post–let alone a brief description of their app. Imagine this: the power of Google behind airfare searching. It gives you complete control over dates, arrival time, departure time, booking fare, price per mile, which airports to avoid, specific connection points, and more. The amount of detail you can search is ridiculous. It is like taking a fine tooth comb through every single possible fight option or combination available. You can not book through this software, but instead it gives you detailed insight into your own particular itinerary built entirely around your preferences. You then take that information and book it with your preferred airline directly, travel agent, or other source. When you run a standard search on a site like Kayak or Expedia, you are merely given the fastest and easiest search results. Sure, you can move the time bars a bit, but you do not have the level of control that you do with ITA. The travel app allows you to do this all from your mobile device and displays beautiful easy-to-read charts which gives you the most accurate information on the go and when you need it most. When I find myself in a jam, I use this software to direct airline agents at the airport on how to rebook me on another flight. It has saved me unnecessary pain and lost time just by having the ability to communicate in greater detail with gate agents. This app gives you more insight into airfare options than anything you have used in the past.

SeatGuru

SeatGuru is a website and travel app that was purchased by TripAdvisor. The goal is to keep frequent fliers informed of their seat options aboard different aircraft by giving you advice based on other users’ firsthand experience. Once you have specific flight information, you run a search on SeatGuru using the airline, flight number, and departure date in order to find seat maps of the aircraft scheduled to operate that flight. Pretty handy when choosing between flights or even when you’re checking-in online. Most people ignore the aircraft information listed when purchasing a flight unless you’re an #AvGeek. Only true #AvGeeks would understand ;). However, noting that small detail can increase your comfort just by avoiding seats that can’t recline due to exit row or knowing that you’re going to have a smaller seat width in other areas of the aircraft.

Below is an example of American Airlines flight AA2437 departing from LGA to MIA on Saturday, July 12th. As you can see, Seat 14C is highlighted and a brief description of the seat quality is available for any curious passengers.

Example seat map of a Boeing 787-800 flight AA2437 with seat information

FlightAware

FlightAware is an incredibly powerful tool that provides pilot-caliber information to all of its users. Want to know why your plane is not at the gate yet? This travel app allows you to search all the previous flight routes of that inbound flight. Not only that–you can track its GPS location in real-time. Turns out your airplane is not on time because the inbound flight is diverting from its usual course due to lightning storms in Houston. It can do this because FlightAware is a global aviation software and data services company that provides detailed flight information for both private and commercial flights. Never travel without this! This travel app has saved me many panic attacks when I feared missing a connection simply because I was armed with information. What more could you possibly need than detailed maps, weather radar, flight status, inbound flights, altitude, or speed? Not a whole lot more–but FlightAware provides it all to you for free.

Loungebuddy

Now time for the relaxing aspect of airport travel. This app is for when you are simply looking for a comfortable place to rest or work away from the hustle and bustle. Loungebuddy is your best friend when it comes to seeking out your airport oasis. No more worrying about complex access rules to lounges. Instead, you create a brief profile in the app by inputting what elite statuses, lounge memberships, or travel rewards credit cards that you have. Once you do this, Loungebuddy now know which lounges you have access to. There is even a box to check if you are a US military member and Loungebuddy will display all USOs as well. As an example, your next trip is on United Airlines from SFO to ATL with a connection in ORD. You create a new trip by adding your itinerary details. Next you have the option to view all of the lounges in each of the three airports. From here, the travel app will display which lounges you have free access to, but you also have the ability to view all total airport lounges or those that are accessible to you (even with a fee). The great thing is that it does all of the work for you. No more memorizing rules and exceptions regarding your lounge access via credit cards, memberships, or elite access. Now, all you have to worry about is choosing which lounge is most suitable to your needs at the moment. Oh wait, Loungebuddy also helps with that too. Other users can leave basic reviews and ratings based on a 4 star system. Things like comfort, quality, cleanliness, service, or if the lounge is worth a detour are all a few review criteria.

AwardWallet

Last, but certainly not least is AwardWallet. It is a free online service that keeps track of all of your rewards programs. That means every single point or mile you accrue gets monitored in a neat portfolio, kept updated, and you even receive alerts when your rewards are about to expire. This is not only limited to travel rewards like airline miles or hotel or rental car points. Credit cards and retail store rewards can also get tracked. Are you a VIB (Very Important Beauty) at Sephora? Then you bet that your status and points can be registered within AwardWallet as well. Over 633 loyalty programs are currently supported so that you do not have to waste precious time checking your point balances. You can even elect to receive weekly, monthly, etc. digest e-mails that report how your balances recently fluctuated. Needless to say, this travel app is a definite must for any serious (or seriously busy) frequent flyer.

I will also note that each and every single travel app I mentioned is absolutely free. Happy traveling!

The post Top 5 Travel Apps You Need for Your Next Trip appeared first on Seize the Globe.

There is a rather convenient travel app that allows you to hail a ride, taxi, black car, SUV, or luxury vehicle to take you where you need to go. Uber is a service that currently operates within 39 countries in both major and not-so-major cities. These include Bangkok, Cape Town, Auckland, Paris, Melbourne, Taipei, Lima, and more. To be honest, when I read the cities list it shocked me. Seriously–Tulsa, Oklahoma? Okay. You would not have guessed that–stop lying.

Uber ride options

This is the type of technology that your friends probably wish existed after late nights on the town. Basically you open the app, view vehicles near you in real-time, enter your desired destination, your phone’s GPS detects your location, receive a fare quote, and voila! the nearest Uber driver will arrive at your location to fetch you. You do not even have to know your current address. The app does all the legwork for you. It is also a completely cashless process; meaning that your ride gets charged to the credit card on file and you will receive a receipt in your e-mail inbox shortly thereafter. You can even split your fare with another user!

So how do you take advantage of $30 of free Uber rides? Sign up for your account here. This referral link will automatically credit $30 toward your next ride after you create your account. If you do that, I will also receive credit. So thank you! For any readers who are already existing Uber members, please feel free to post your own referral link in the comments section. The more the merrier!

Additionally, Uber launched a new program with American Express that rewards users who enroll their eligible American Express card for use within the Uber app. Users can choose to either receive 2x the points or use points to pay for their ride. That is a pretty easy way to maximize your points earning potential with just one tap of the screen. There are countless travel apps on the market, but Uber stands out for a number of reasons. The GPS tracking does a fantastic job of pin-pointing your location, you can rest assured in the fare that you pay in an unfamiliar city, and best of all no more fumbling with cash in order to tip your driver while cars whiz past you–because there is no tipping with Uber.

Uber – Amex Partnership

Enjoy your free $30 and double points earning!

The post Free $30 Credit for New Uber Users appeared first on Seize the Globe.