Why they don’t happen
It was never one decision.
Three quarters of the trips people talk about never happen. Almost never because nobody wanted to go — because working out where is one job out of about fifteen and the other fourteen are still sitting there afterwards. One of you does the lot or none of it gets done.
- Where. The one everybody has an opinion about, right up until somebody has to book it.
- When — around the half of you who can only get away in September.
- Who is actually coming, as opposed to who has been saying maybe since March.
- Where you are sleeping, at a price nobody has said out loud yet.
- What you are doing on the Tuesday.
- What the whole thing costs each of you, early enough to put it away rather than find out.
- The thing you all want to do that sold out six weeks ago.
- Whether anybody’s passport will actually get them in.
- Who paid for dinner and who owes them for it.
I do the lot. That is the whole of what I am for. It is also why I am not a poll with a nicer font.
The hard part
Nobody else has to lift more than one finger.
One person always ends up doing the whole thing while everybody else does one tap. That isn't laziness, it's just how groups are — so I've built for it instead of pretending otherwise. No app to install, no account, no password, nothing to remember.
- You send a link.That's the whole invite. It goes in the group chat where they already are.
- They tap their name.No sign-up, no email, no password. They're on the trip in one tap, on whatever they're already holding.
- They answer once.In, maybe, out. Or hand their vote to whoever cares more. Or say they don't mind. All three count as answered. I close the voting the moment all of you have spoken.
- You never chase.I write the nudge and you paste it in the chat, so it lands as a message from a mate rather than a notification from an app.
The rep bit
I check the things nobody checks.
A spreadsheet does the splitting. It doesn't know that a passport nine years and eleven months old won't get you into Spain. Or that they count from the day you land rather than the day you booked.
It is one of the most common ways a holiday is lost. The BBC reported that as many as 100,000 people a year lose their holidays in this way.
What does your passport have to say?
I don't ask for anything off your passport — not the dates and certainly not the number. I tell you what the two dates have to be and you go and look. Which is the bit people skip, because the issue date is not a thing anybody has ever had a reason to read.
A flight more than three hours late
That's money the airline owes each of you, not the booking. I work out whether it qualifies and I keep the dates and times you will be asked for.
The trip that was quietly never going to happen
Tell me how many of you it takes and by when. If we miss it I call it off myself, so nobody has to be the one who says it — and everybody gets their money back before anyone has booked anything.
Rain on the one outdoor thing you booked
I only mention weather when it clashes with the plan — and I'll tell you which empty day to move it to. "It'll rain Thursday" on its own is a weather app. There are better ones.
The rate on the day, not the day you settle
Every expense is frozen at the exchange rate it was actually spent at, so settling up in November doesn't move because the euro did in September.
The bit everyone else skips
And then I come with you.
Every other planner goes quiet at the airport. The planning is finished, so the app becomes a folder of decisions nobody opens again — which is a strange place to stop, given the holiday has not started yet.
What you owe, with no signal
The maths runs on your phone rather than on a server somewhere, so the question everybody asks all week still answers on a beach with nothing to connect to.
The whole plan, in one place
Where everybody is, what is next and what time it starts. On your phone before you land, because a plan is no use to anyone on café wifi that turns out not to be there.
If it goes wrong, one button
Never let a hotel call you an ambulance. What the GHIC actually covers. What to do about a stolen passport. All of it is on the phone before you land, because the moment you need it is the moment you have no signal.
The photos land on a page, not in a grid
I ask for one at the moment worth keeping and it goes in the book with your words underneath. Everybody already has a camera roll. Nobody has the trip.
Everybody remembers their passport. I’d like to be the other thing you take.
Who I am
“Warm about people. Merciless about systems. On your side, never the airline's.”
A small hard-shell suitcase with legs. I've been on ten thousand of these and I want yours to actually happen. That's all I'm after. Not your mate, not your mum. The one who's read the terms.
- I have never lost anyone. I mention this more often than is necessary.
- I won't name a favourite city on principle. It's Lisbon.
- Three days before you go I sleep standing up, in the hall, by the door.
- My handle is scuffed. There's a story. I'm not telling it.
Who's behind it
It's the two of us.
We're Will and Jonny. Mates since we were kids. Between us we've been on a lot of these. Will had the idea. Jonny started working on it just for fun but then got a bit obsessed. And here we are.
Getting it
Start a trip.
No sign-up to join one, nothing to install to have your say and no card to find out whether your group is actually going.
iPhone app — coming