Should you carry E-ticket Printout(s) at Checkin?

[drron]

We always carry print outs of everything-flights,hotels,rental cars etc.It sure has come in handy.We have had a couple of hotels denying we had a reservation.Handy also when they try and tell you that"we have upgraded you".And on last years DONE4 was essential when MA cancelled as flight-we were transferred to LH-they of course had no knowledge of us but with printout they were able to book our bags BUD-FRA and the on to ORD on AA.

 

[dfcatch]

Definitely I carry a copy of my e-tickets. Perhaps domestic I don't, but international flying I do.

I also now make a point of noting all the addresses of where I am staying (hotel or friends'/relatives' residences), as well as hotel confirmation printouts.

I've been pulled up on a number of occasions where having e-tix copies was required:

• Checking in for a long routing at BNE I with QF, the lady made me show e-tix for ongoing flight plus ask a question as to where I was going after my final destination on the itinerary.
• Travelling back to LON from MUC I was stopped in the airbridge and asked for my passport. They then asked me to show where I was going after LON, with e-tix as proof. Actually, the e-tix copy I had with me was for the wrong dates (it was my original dated booking which I had later changed to an earlier date). But when I explained it seem to pass mustard.
• To enter MNL airport (i.e. to actually step through the entrance doors to the building), you need to show proof that you have a booking.
• Philippine passport control have asked me before if I have a continuing / return journey ticket, to which I replied yes and then they asked me for proof.

List goes on a bit, but enough to convince me that I need to carry copies of my tickets.

I know some people get away with showing electronic copies or TripIt details, but in some cases this may not be possible (no connection, use of devices is against the rules, not good enough proof, etc.)

The one time I had immigration ask for it was US Preclearance at YYZ. Apparently the fact that I was only there for dinner on a weekend was suspicious.

He didn't like that I tried to show him on my iPhone so sent me to secondary. At that point I figured I should stop being lazy so pulled the paper version out, 10 mins later all kosher.

 

[Brisbane Flyer]

Ok, I'm guilty as charged, very lax international traveler, can't remember the last time I printed anything. In my 3m miles of flying, only had one hassle with e-tickets, that was in Cairo, rocked up, no paper backup, sent off to Egypt Air, they printed the necessary info and I was thru security. Never had any hotel hassles either, knock on wood!

Maybe after reading this thread I will change my ways...I do hold three passports (US, EU, Australian) and a work visa (Canada), so that allows me to move around quite easily.

But, I did go to the new casino in Singapore last night, made some easy money, maybe that's an omen for me to quite rolling the dice...

 

[samiam]

An opinion would be welcome from our industry insiders.

Do you expect that pax will have a print-out of their E-Ticket with them for domestic flights? For international flights?

Will the booking reference, E-Ticket Number and some form of ID (with surname) suffice?

If those details can be accessed online and at a check-in kiosk, under what circumstances would customer service staff also require a hard copy?

Thanks

 

[serfty]

Sometimes, even having e-ticket printouts at check-in can be of little help.

Last year I was asked for my ticket when checking in with SWMBO at Rome for a flight to MAD on IB.

I presented my printout showing both of us on the LONE4 bookings with e-ticket numbers to be met with - "We have your wife, but not you"!

:shock:

To cut a long story short, somehow in the 5 days since we had arrived at ROME, our AA booking had been split and, unbeknownst to me, I had a new ticket number; what it was, I knew not. :evil:

The day before I had noticed something strange with our bookings with me having a new Amadeus reference separate SWMBO's. I did not twig that a new ticket number had been generated for me, otherwise it would have been quite easy to look it up and write it down there and then (www.checkmytrip.com)! It was lucky we were at the airport 150 minutes before the flight.

It took 1¼ hours to sort that out and that was with help from the AAgents in another terminal working the one AA flight from Rome that morning.

 

[MissBurrill]

Carry one! The DJ system crashed this afternoon and it was manual check in :shock:.

 

[JOC469]

Domestically there's no issue.

Narita also was close to denying entry as I couldn't prove when I was leaving the country (was overnighting in transit). $20 in data charges later, they accepted sighting of the booking on qantas.com on my mobile.

I first travelled to Japan a few years back with a friend. We were due to fly out on the Friday night, and back on the Sunday night giving us around 2 full days in Tokyo. We got bumped off our Friday night flight and had to catch a Saturday day flight. Check-in at Sydney wasn't a problem where we showed our passports and Qantas worked out who we were and what we were doing, but in the confusion with the flight delay my friend and I had 'swapped' our e-ticket printouts in our baggage.

I front up to Tokyo Immigration where they see I am flying in one night, and leaving the next. They ask to see a copy of my ticket and all I can show them is a printout of with someone elses name for a flights on a different day.

I narrowly avoided getting hauled into the special room out the back, and was instead passed over to the side and a Japanese lady made numerous phone calls quoting my passport number down the phone to be eventually satisfied that I flew intot he country legally, and could get out of the country too. It put the fear of God in me that when travelling in a foreign country where I don't speak the language to make sure I have enough information to explain what I am doing there.

 

[anat0l]

I narrowly avoided getting hauled into the special room out the back, and was instead passed over to the side and a Japanese lady made numerous phone calls quoting my passport number down the phone to be eventually satisfied that I flew intot he country legally, and could get out of the country too. It put the fear of God in me that when travelling in a foreign country where I don't speak the language to make sure I have enough information to explain what I am doing there.

O/T here...

The Japanese are usually quite friendly people - even immigration / border control, funny enough - but they are strict and you need to be able to substantiate your answers if required. I narrowly escaped the same fate you were envisaging recently when I couldn't fill in the address of my hotel, nor write down the full name of the organisation that was organising the conference I was going to. I don't know how I managed to "bluff" my way through - maybe it was how I could describe my entire planned travel in detail (but not enough detail obviously).

I did have e-tix however so if they really wanted to see that I was getting out of Japan at some time then I could've proven it so.

I tried to retrieve my details using my laptop before I got to immigration, but between the arrivals concourse at the gate and passport control there was no wifi signal available.

 

[wandering_fred]

Unless I have an onward connection on the same PNR (almost never), the QF check-in agents in PER have always asked for my ONWARD ticket. Most of the time they don't need the PER-SIN segment - but occasionally do.

Wonder what they would do with a train ticket to KL?

YMMV

Fred

 

[pshepvic]

Lots of interesting comments here. For domestic, I have never carried a copy of the itinerary or anything like that, and have never had an issue (except in the one situation where our travel coordinator forgot to book my flight! But we won't go there...)

For international, I always used to carry the details, more for my own reference. Only Jetstar had ever asked to see it.

For my most recent trip, the itinerary was MEL-SYD-NRT, ITA-HND-SFO-DFW-MIA-STX-SJU-SXM-MIA-DFW-SEA-LAX-NRT-SYD-MEL. A combination of carriers, being QF, JAL, AA and VX. I didn't carry a single copy of any itinerary - it was all in my iPhone and iPad so that I could refer to it (stored in both my calendar and Trip It). And before you say "what if you lose those" - well I could lose a piece of paper as well! And I'm always going to be able to find internet access in the event I do need to print them out somewhere along the line.

Not once on the trip was I asked to provide any confirmation or evidence of any of the flights, whether at check in, customs or immigration. Maybe having a B1/B2 US Visa helped in that regard, but no request to see any documentation in Japan either. As long as you smile, bow and say "Konnichiwa" politely, I think they are happy.

 

[TonyHancock]

I was a bit lax about printing itineraries and e tickets. I use trip tracker on my IPhone.

I never carry domestic tickets/itineraries.

I's stopped altogether with international too until a relatively minor incident in outbound duty free. I tend to buy duty free for collection on the way back in to Australia. The shop assistant asked to see proof of my inbound flight. The only proof I had was an emailed itinerary on my Blackberry - which was almost impossible to read.

There was a long queue of, rightly, annoyed passengers behind me. Ever since then I have always carried a paper copy.

Having read through this thread I will continue to carry a paper copy.....but perhaps for some of the reasons here rather than my original one.

 

[oz_mark]

I generally have a paper copy of whatever constitutes my onward journey. I have been asked several times for details of how I am leaving Singapore (Qantas, Jetstar, JAL have all asked)

 

[Keith009]

I either carry my e-ticket receipt with me, or make sure I have access to an easily retrievable electronic copy. 90% of the time you probably won't need the e-ticket receipt, but for the 10% of the time you do you'll be very glad you did. Immigration/customs is the least of my concerns (as they can't seem to tell the difference between a regular itinerary and an e-ticket receipt anyway), what matters more is antiquated airline systems which can sometimes cause reservations to get "lost" at check in or e-ticket coupons to disappear from the booking, in which case the only way to retrieve the booking, prove you have a booking or show that you've paid for the booking is the 13 digit e-ticket number. The need to prove onward journeys if travelling across separate tickets to check in is also another good reason to carry e-ticket receipts around. It is not enough to simply know the booking reference. At the very least, scribble down all ticket numbers somewhere.

For ticketless carriers, I'd print out the booking confirmation that clearly shows the itinerary, booking reference, and barcode that references the reservation.

 

[thewinchester]

I've generally refrained from carrying any airline paperwork with me, as I normally OLCI before the flight and have been able to print the boarding pass.

If I do get stuck, I know I have the original PNR details available from either TripIt or my email which I can access on the fly.

 

[FlyboyAl]

I came into LAX last Friday and did not need any paperwork up until I got to immigration.
First the guy behind the counter asked me my date of birth (while looking at my passport), then he asked where I was born (still looking at my passport), then he asked for my return travel details.
I gave him all the QANTAS PNR info, as well as the worldmate itinerary and he smiled at me and said most people could not give him that information. Then he smiled at me and told me to have a great trip :shock:

So its not always airlines and reservations where you need something on paper

 

[coco50]

Re: Platinum "anytime" lounge Access ceases from 1 February 2011

Domestically there's no issue.

Internationally I've been pulled up on every trip since last August to provide an eticket/intinary at check in. Once they wouldn't check me in without a copy and sent me to ticketing to get a copy.

Narita also was close to denying entry as I couldn't prove when I was leaving the country (was overnighting in transit). $20 in data charges later, they accepted sighting of the booking on qantas.com on my mobile.

Before mid last year it was never a problem to not carry any proof, but now I don't leave without it.

You would need an itinerary for entry into most countries just to prove that you were leaving before your visa (or visa waiver) expired

 

[pshepvic]

Re: Platinum "anytime" lounge Access ceases from 1 February 2011

You would need an itinerary for entry into most countries just to prove that you were leaving before your visa (or visa waiver) expired

Unless the Visa has more than 12 months validity - as you can only book flights up to 365 days in advance in most cases, if you have a 2 year visa then they normally don't require proof of a return or departing flight.

 

[stryker]

... One should never attempt to fly anywhere without an "e-ticket" hard copy of their booking or equivalent. (This is a printout of the booking clearly showing the ticket number (or booking reference for 'ticketless carriers').

...

Strange question serfty, but the answer is definitely NO!

 

[DeKa]

I only carry them in India where you can't get into the terminal without a print out.

 

[ozmille]

I never used to carry them (and still don't for domestic travel) but was happy it did have it on me in Helsinki a while back. The check in system in Brussels was down so we didn't get our onwards boarding passes for HEL-BKK-SYD only BRU HEL. The check in girl said in Helsinki just proceed to the transfer desk. Offcourse when we arrived in Helsinki the Transfer Desks were all closed. Went to Border Security and they were happy with only seeing a ticket and not a Boarding Pass to let us through. So from now on I will carry the 6 pages that are an electronic ticket on me.