No disrespect to the other social networking sites for travelers that I’ve written about in the past, but Traxo, which goes into public beta today, looks like the real deal.
The site, billed as a “relationship facilitator” for travelers, allows you to organize your itinerary and travel information and brings friends together when they’re on the road. And if you think you’ve seen this before, think again.
Traxo offered me an exclusive look at a pre-beta version of the site. Its best feature, based on less than 24 hours of testing, is one that tracks reservations made through popular travel sites and automatically adds them to your itinerary. That’s right, no more emailing your itinerary to a generic email address and hoping for the best. It’s totally automated.
Among its other standout features:
Instant updates. If a trip is canceled or modified, the updates are automatically changed on your profile. In other words, you don’t have to resend the information and purge the old trip from your profile.
No more hit-or-miss recommendations. Traxo lets you get travel recommendations only from people you trust, which should eliminate the false positives you get for recommendations on other social networking sites.
Better privacy settings. Like on other social networks created for travelers, Traxo members receive alerts identifying when their travels overlap, so two friends can meet up over drinks. But the site also allows you to specify the members to whom you’re granting access to your trip plans.
Traxo was created by Travelocity veterans Andres Fabris, Andy Chen and Richard Pendergast. So they’re travel insiders — not coders with a passing interest in exotic vacations.
This social network has all the makings of the kind of site I could recommend, but I have a few words of caution. First, it’s still in beta and may need a tweak or two. I tried to download my Gmail address book and it stalled out (although this might have had something to do with the size of the address book).
If you’re only an occasional traveler, Traxo may not be worth the effort. When you sign up, it asks for all of your frequent flier information and passwords, which can involve a lot of extra research if your’e not an elite-level frequent traveler.
Bottom line? Traxo has all the makings of a useful, intuitive and most of all, easy site for travelers who want to stay in touch with their friends.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What’s their turnaround time for beta invites?
Hi Jason,
Thanks for your interest in Traxo. We will be sending out beta invites within 24 hours. We look forward to any beta feedback you may have.
Regards, Andy
Co-founder, Traxo.com
Does this site work if you made your reservations directly on the airline’s website?
Congrats Andres, Andy and Richard! Looking forward to checking the site out!
Hi Steve, Yes we currently support most of the major US air carriers. If you book directly on the airline site, Traxo will import the reservations once you give us permission to. Let us know if you use an airline site that we don’t support and we will add it as quickly a we can.
Thanks,
Andy Chen
Congrats!! Can’t wait to invite more friends.