Originally Posted by
Blumie
A quick (or not-so-quick) aside: when traveling internationally, I have learned always to carry a printed itinerary and receipt with me.
It was an unbelievably frustrating experience. And so while I know that the odds of actually needing a receipt again are very, very low, I now make it a habbit of carrying one with me on international trips. (And if I think of it, I'm gonna start asking the AC to reprint the itin and receipt for me on ticket stock!)
This is a very sound advice, and not just for AA - having itin and receipt on ticket stock seems to work better at foreign airports than just the e-ticket receipt.
Last year I had this experience on UA that for some reason it wouldn't let me check-in online for domestic leg but must check-in with counter agent, on an itinerary domestic on UA, Transpac and among Pacific on NZ. It let my husband on the identical itinerary checked-in online though - so it had nothing to do with passport or anything. At the counter the grumpy UA agent printed out the whole itinerary on UA ticket stock and checked me in w/o any explanation. Little that I knew at the time, this UA ticket stock became very helpful in the ongoing journey that lasted 45 days whenever there were some delays or whatnot - the agents were much happier to see the itinerary printed on UA ticket stock instead of our e-tickets printout! Somehow they did not fully trust the e-ticket printouts for whatever reasons.