I’m at that age where everyone I know is getting married, and that means one thing: parties.  Specifically, for me as a guy this means bachelor parties, w00t!  So this week, according to Bing,  was the best time to book a July flight to Las Vegas because the prices would only go up.  No one likes to travel alone, so since my buddy Paul will be heading out to the same party we decided to fly together.

I hopped onto one of the “flight deal” sites and bought two round-trip tickets to Vegas with my credit card.  I told Paul over Gchat that I had booked our tickets, and asked him how he wanted to pay for his half.

“Do you use Venmo?”, he asked.

Well guess what? I do now!  Venmo is a simple, fun, and free way to pay your friends.  It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up with facebook, verify my bank account, and bill my friend for his part of our flight.  The site is slick and modern, with social features that show what your friends are paying each other if they choose to share.  There is a free app for iPhone as well as Android that gives you all the control that their website has. It can even work on a non-smartphone with SMS.

Venmo works for more than just flights. I used it at the ballpark the other day, and it was just what I needed.  I paid for the tickets, my buddy paid me back with his phone; when one of us bought concessions, the other one paid him back electronically.  The coolest use, though,  was among guys trading dollars based on their respective team’s base hits. Each time one team or the other got on base, they could instantly trade their dollars back and forth.  OK, full disclosure: I’m not sure if this is 100% legal – however, I can say it was definitely nifty.