Why Printing Your Boarding Pass At The Airport Is Always A Good Idea

We use our phones for almost everything these days, and traveling is no different. You can download helpful apps to score the best deals on flights and hotels, making it so easy to research, book, and board a flight using nothing more than a phone — and many people are doing exactly that. I find myself at airport gates almost daily as a flight attendant, and I hardly see any paper passes anymore. Now, almost everyone breezes through security and boards their plane with the flash of a QR code.

Mobile boarding passes may provide ease, as well as a more eco-friendly alternative to paper, but there are a few reasons I always print my boarding pass when I'm flying for leisure. I know from experience that phones don't always work as anticipated, and losing access at the wrong moment can result in anything from a small headache to actually missing a flight. The extra few minutes it takes to print a physical boarding pass at a kiosk or ticket counter is worth it should anything go wrong. Another thing to keep in mind is that while it may be rare, some international airports don't accept mobile passes at all.

Boarding passes have information you may need at a glance, like your flight and gate numbers, and when your mobile pass lives on your smartphone, you become reliant on your device's functionality. We use our phones all day, every day, but sometimes they let us down. Anything from a dead battery to the loss of a Wi-Fi network will affect your ability to access flight information, and you don't want this happening at the wrong moment. You'll need it handy at the gate to board your flight, and possibly even prior to that, because while flashing your boarding pass may no longer be required at all TSA checkpoints, it does still display your eligibility for TSA PreCheck. This means that those taking part in that program will need to have it handy prior to passing through security.

Printing your pass will safeguard against these technological mishaps, as well as accidents like a dropped phone that could result in a shattered screen, or a phone that spontaneously overheats in the summer. Airline apps have also been known to glitch, so taking a screenshot of your mobile pass or adding it to your digital wallet is always a good idea. 

Of course, it's also possible to misplace a pass you've printed, so make sure you know what to do if you lose access to your boarding pass at the airport, regardless of whether it's mobile or physical.

Having a physical boarding pass is also helpful because of the information they contain. Boarding passes are riddled with codes that give you crucial flight information, as well as your actual ticket number. A mobile boarding pass is designed to be streamlined and easily readable, and often only includes your confirmation number. Having access to your ticket number is crucial in several different scenarios, such as requesting a refund from the airline, as well as making claims to insurance should any of your items be lost in transit. Some insurance claims even require actual pictures or copies of your boarding pass as supporting documentation when filing.

Another situation in which knowing your ticket number is necessary is if you need to rebook your flight. This has happened to me when a flight delay caused me to miss my connection, as well as when a flight was cancelled by the airline itself. Lines at customer help desks can be long (especially if there are multiple flight cancellations at once), and you want the airline agent to be able to assist you as quickly as possible, which often means scanning the boarding pass from the missed or cancelled flight segment. In cases of a flight being cancelled, it's even possible that your mobile boarding pass may disappear completely once the airline's system processes that cancellation. The extra time it takes to find your original booking could easily cost you a seat on the next flight. 

So, having a physical boarding pass on hand may just save the day should anything unexpected happen during your trip.