Originally Posted by House

I have to say that if the sort of announcement described above becomes standard on UA (but not on other US carriers) then I would start routing on other carriers.

What should be done with the I94W's is that they should be removed from the passport at check in and then stapled to the boarding pass for the flight leaving the US. Then the card gets kept by UA at the port of departure.

As an aside, the UA agent's announcement seems to havce been wrong anyway. Visa holders also have little (white) bits of card stapled in their passports by border control which must be surrendered on leaving the US.

Pretty soon this will be rendered irrelevant (if the border control agencies make good on their promise of machines, located in international departure concourses at which people have to verify their departure by the use of passport, fingerprints and boarding pass). It would of course be so much easier if they had an exit immigration check, though I guess most airports aren't really designed to allow for this.