raj_cl

Sunday evening few weeks back, flight departure time 6:55 pm, I checked in online 1 day prior from my home computer.

I did not get a printout, and don't have a smartphone which can scan boarding pass...don't ask me why I still carry a blackberry!

Reached DFW at 6:10 pm Terminal D but domestic US flight, swiped my credit card (do it every week) at the self-service kiosk to access my reservation for printing boarding pass to enter security. Got message on the kiosk to contact an agent. Note I had already checked-in a day prior and had the boarding pass pdf on my blackberry.

About 6:15 I stand in priority line, 6:25 my number comes, agent says she cannot check me in as the time has passed. I tell her I'm already checked in and show my boarding pass pdf on blackberry.

She says she can't do anything and can't print boarding pass. I take my chance at the security line and try to enter but their scanner didn't recognize the blackberry pdf so I couldn't get in.

6:30 pm now, I gain go to the main line, talk with an agent who says she can put me on a standby for next flight. Really? Anyways I was livid by now and rather than trying to fight the system, said fine give me a damn piece of paper so I can get inside the terminal. She gives me confirmed boarding pass for next flight.

6:40 pm I get inside the terminal, run frantically to the gate, I'm the last person in at 6:50 pm, and the gate agent was able to print my boarding pass by looking at my ID (driver license).

Never happened to me before in my 15+ yrs of travel. The agents outside the terminal who were unable to print my boarding pass were making up some BS story about me being out of the cutoff range, but how is that possible, I had no luggage to check in, just needed a boarding pass re-print.

What am I missing? Advice welcome.

imapilotaz

You learned a valuable lesson. Do not show up at the airport 40 minutes prior to departure unless you have a physical boarding pass (on your phone as a saved JPEG in case the app dies or a printout from home). The chances of things like this happening are great enough to force a missed flight.

Its worse when this happens at a small airport as they physically shut the counter down at T-30 and there's NO ONE around to even talk to about trying to reprint a boarding pass.

ETA: The wording of what you tell a TA is also incredibly important. If you walk up and ask to "reprint my boarding pass" it typically goes better than "I tried to check in and it gave me this error". At that point they will look at the time and not even bother looking at your situation and say they cant. Its happened to me and happened to others. Finding a helpful agent is the hard part.

wetrat0

I agree with this part. I wonder what would have happened if you had just walked up and said "Can you please reprint my boarding pass?" I have had this happen to me before; e.g., when both I and my flight were delayed, thus I was arriving (checked-in) inside the check-in window based on the originally scheduled departure time, the kiosk would not give me a BP but agent had no problem.

RogerD408

Yes, not uncommon for AAgents to make up rules and not look to see what is really happening. I've learned over the years to not take what the customer is telling me what's happening when they complain about the systems. Most times when they try to demonstrate the problem, it doesn't happen.

Using the wrong terms with the TA will only confuse most of them. I understand cutting it so close can't be helped many times. However, there is a potential cost and you lucked out this time.

raj_cl

Thanks for the inputs.

FWIW, my exact words when I walked up to the agent were "I want to re-print my boarding pass."

After this incident when I have to catch a flight, I take a paper printout the night before. Continuing the practice to the extent possible!

MrAndy1369

It sounds like you were kind of shabbily treated. I mean, you made it explicit that all you needed was a reprint.

to those unhelpful AAgents.

RogerD408

Sounds like the TA wasn't listening (wish that was unusual).

I have an Android and the mobile BP is hit and miss. If at all possible I have a printed BP on hand if needed. Plus it helps if there is any issue getting the flight miles posted.

Often1

For what it is worth, a Blackberry can very much handle an e-BP. That is different from a PDF attachment which will not work from any device.

The Blackberry version is a bit clunkier than others, but it works in a pinch. You will receive an email with a link. When you select the link, you get your e-BP.

ThreeJulietTango

If the gate agent has already finalized the flight, the ticket agent will receive an error message when attempting to reprint the boarding pass. The ticket agent was not lying or making things up.

^ I see plenty of passengers who present the PDF attachment. I give 'em a paper boarding pass because I know they'll be back in 5 minutes if I don't.

swag

1. To answer the thread title question, minimum check in time at DFW is 45 minutes. The kiosk should work fine right up until the cutoff. At 6:10 for a 6:55 flight, you may have been late by a matter of seconds.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInforma...rivalTimes.jsp

2. Neither the kiosk nor the agents have any leeway in check in after the deadline. But
as others have said, the agent (but not the kiosk) should be able to reprint the boarding pass, if you're already checked in and have no bags to check.

raj_cl

Finalized the flight? What does that mean?

flymeAAway

I learned this the hard way as well do to a dead phone battery. The GA could "re-print" your BP because you were already on the secure side. Kiosk and TA's can not after the cutoff. It would have been interesting to see if the Kiosk on the secure side would have reprinted for you.

21A

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1.1; Nexus 5 Build/LMY48B) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.93 Mobile Safari/537.36)

IIRC, the airside kiosks in the hubs do allow this (as well as other servicing functions like seat changes, SDFC, and so on).

deac83

Knew what this thread was about before opening it.

I think it was the Super Bowl year in Dallas with the ice storm. Flights being canceled everywhere wound up having to change flights to go out of St. Louis. Me and my buddy got confirmed on the flight but St. Louis was 2 1/2 hours away and the flight left in 3 hours. As it happened aa.com essentially crashed and we could not check-in or print boarding passes. On the drive down we finally checked in via smart phone (pre-scanable boarding passes). 30 min before flight drop car at Hertz, Hertz gives us a drive that takes us right to the terminal in the car we dropped off. Now inside 30 min. Kiosks won't print boarding pass.

Because of weather lots of people in line, but my friend was able to beg his way to the front of the line. The agent said they could print us a stand by ticket which got us through security.

That is when I learned about the kiosks and online check-in.

I also believe (I could be wrong) but the luggage cut off doesn't change because of a flight delay. Flight delayed by two hours, you still need to get your luggage into the system T-45 from original flight time. I've never tested this, but had asked an agent one time. Doesn't mean it's true but not really willing to find out the hard way.

PDXPremier

I can't imagine showing up at a huge airport like DFW with only 40 minutes to spare...even if I did have a paper boarding pass. On AS, they would have been boarding by the time you arrived at the airport and shut the door 10 minutes before scheduled departure time....good thing you were flying AA