Places to go? People to see? Pack your bags

Travel can be stressful, even when you’re planning to go somewhere fun. Staying on top of travel plans and package deliveries can become time-consuming and a hassle.

First, Outlook began automatically adding events from your email to your calendar. Now, Microsoft has more new experiences to help you stay on top of your travel plans and package deliveries, including the ability to:

• Verify your travel reservations and package delivery details with ease using simplified summary cards in your inbox and calendar.
• Check in for flights, change hotel and rental car reservations or track packages at the touch of a button.
• Stay on top of your flights with reliable reminders.

These features recently rolled out to Outlook for Mac and Outlook on the web and will soon be coming to Windows, iOS and Android, as well as the Windows 10 Mail and Calendar apps.

Smarter email, simpler reservations

Travel itinerary emails are complicated to read because they contain so much more than just your reservation. It especially gets complicated when the itinerary includes multiple flights, hotel reservations and rental car confirmations. Outlook now displays the most important information from travel itineraries and puts them in an easily readable summary on top of your email.

Quick actions at your fingertips (or a click of your mouse)

In addition to helping you see your travel plans at a glance, the summary cards provide you with quick actions for the key things you need to do. No more hunting for the check-in link in a long confirmation email or trying to find where to change your hotel reservation. It’s now just a tap or click away in the summary card above the email to go directly to the provider’s specific web page for the action.

All your travel info, automatically added to your calendar

In addition to smarter email experiences, Outlook automatically adds travel events to your calendar with the same summary cards for each step of your trip detected in the reservations. The events include everything you need to know, such as date, time, locations, confirmation number and a few other key pieces of info you might need at your fingertips. You can go to the original booking email with a single click from the calendar event in case you need to look up more details.

Travel updates and cancellations happen—for good or not so good reasons. Either way, Outlook automatically keeps the events on your calendar updated with new information from your travel provider.

Helpful check-in reminders to keep you on time

Timing is everything and it can mean the difference between getting the seat you want or settling for one you really don’t want. Not all airlines are great at notifying and reminding you when it’s time to check in for your flight. Outlook will always send you a reminder email exactly 24 hours in advance with a link to the airline’s check-in experience. What’s more, you can set an Uber ride reminder so you always get to airport on time.

And three hours before your flight takes off, Outlook will remind you again, so you can plan to be at the airport on time.

And never miss package deliveries!

Travel is not the only thing you need to keep track of so Microsoft also added package-tracking experiences. When you receive a shipping confirmation email, Outlook summarizes the most important info in a card above the email and automatically adds an event to your calendar (for non-commercial accounts) to provide quick actions.

To learn more about Outlook or have questions regarding these features, please contact us at sales@vorsite.com or (206) 781-1797.