One trip, shared with the whole group.

Every group trip starts in a WhatsApp chat and slowly drowns in it. Flight times get buried under memes, half the group books the wrong dates, and nobody's sure who's actually paid. A group trip planner pulls the plan out of the chat and into one shared place everyone can see: the flights, the accommodation, who's on which booking, the budget and where to meet. HolidayPal gives the whole group a single trip that updates live on everyone's phone, so the chat can go back to being the chat.

The fastest way to kill momentum is to make ten people sign up for something. HolidayPal doesn't. One person creates the trip and shares a short code or a WhatsApp link; tap it and you're in, seeing the same plan as everyone else. From there anyone can add a booking and it appears for the whole group within seconds. It's the same simple sharing that powers family trips, scaled up to a crowd.

The first real test of any group trip is the airport, at 6am, when half the group is late and nobody knows where to meet. HolidayPal lets you drop a meet-up pin — a place like "Wetherspoons, past security" — with a time and a note, visible to everyone with a live countdown and one-tap directions. Add live flight tracking and everyone's boarding passes in one place, and the morning runs itself instead of melting down in a flurry of "where are you?" messages.

Money is what sours group trips after the event. A shared group budget keeps a running tally of what the trip is costing, visible to everyone, so there are no nasty surprises and no awkward chasing when you get home. If you're organising something bigger — a milestone birthday or a stag or hen weekend — there's a dedicated mode with surprises you can hide from the guest of honour; see the stag do planner and hen do planner.