Originally Posted by
fruitcage
The e-ticket receipt email from BA always includes the warning "If the payment cardholder is travelling, you must bring the card used to pay for this booking to the airport with you, for verification, before you can travel."
It's a tie-breaker in the event two passengers show up claiming the ticket.
I can imagine, offhand, two scenarios where that could happen.
1. Father and son have the same name. One shows up earlier, collects the boarding pass, then later the guy who actually paid for his own ticket shows up and finds out his bp has already been collected.
2. Similar situation, but with a fake ID. Crook knows that Joe Blow will be flying tomorrow, so gets a fake ID with Joe's name. Shows up way early, collects the bp.