As the co-founder of India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site — CashKaro.com, I shuffle between cities all the time as we have offices in Gurgaon and Chennai.
Travel has become a way of life and most of my trips are unplanned. I often travel to Bengaluru and Mumbai to meet investors & partners and to various other cities like Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur etc. at public forums/events where I am invited as a keynote speaker.
Amidst all the commotion, booking tickets take a back seat and most of my bookings are last minute hussles! As a deal hunter I look for coupons every time I book flights or hotels.
I had heard good things about the Goibibo App so I installed it one day and thought of giving it a shot! I wasn’t sure what to expect at the start but I was pleasantly surprised with all the value propositions that came my way.
FLIGHT BOOKINGS MADE SIMPLE
The first thing I noticed after downloading the app was its simple user interface. The information was ample but didn’t feel crammed and the booking process was seamless.
It is easy to check the best fares for various dates. The calendar layout makes it easy to pick the date when flight fares are the lowest.
The app follows an approach similar to other travel booking apps. But I found it particularly simple to apply filters and make the entire booking hassle-free.
GoCash
Promotional GoCash from Goibibo is added on every booking made using coupon codes. I got discount codes from coupon and cashback sites and also from the ‘Offers & Promotions’ tab on the Goibibo App .
GoCash saves money on the booking amount excluding convenience fees and service taxes which makes it a good deal overall :)
LIVE TRACKING AND NOTIFICATIONS
After getting used to the Goibibo App, I’ve found myself liking the LIVE TRACKING feature a lot. It’s always a task to move around airports to look for flight status and departure timings all the time. Real-time data on flight schedules relay accurate timings and other details as app notifications instantly.
While I’ve used other travel apps in the past, I found Goibibo to be more prompt and instant with notifications.
TRAVEL GUIDES
I’ve never really felt a need to use travel guides since there is always Google. But I might have to re-consider this after checking out the exhaustive travel guide on the Goibibo App.
It’s clearly a massive effort to put together information like accommodation, events/festivals, how to reach, weather and places to visit into a single guide.
I loved it and look forward to seeing more places added to the guide.
Questions and Answers Section
To be honest, I was quite surprised to find a Q&A section on the Goibibo app.
I tried it by asking a question about the best places to dine in Bangalore. And…rather promptly I got a reply from a hotelier.
It is good to see an active community engagement in a travel app. I believe there are admins and moderators to take this effective forum with interesting and useful answers forward.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE AND VERDICT
It’s been a wonderfully simple experience using the Goibibo mobile App — ease of use is ultimately what we all look for! While the app itself is really responsive and has no lags in booking, a slicker UI and more colors could make it even more fun in future.
A big thumbs up to the Goibibo team for having me hooked to their app for bookings and reservations.
Highly Recommended
Written by — Swati Bhargava — Co-founder CashKaro.com — India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site
My travel booking experience via Goibibo App was originally published in Backstage on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.