dval44

Ok so the technicalities are getting a little absurd here.

@HNLbasedFlyer says that my boarding pass was not "deleted," but rather it was "removed." I got a perfect score on the SAT verbal, and I have to stay this one stumped me.

Ok so this is confusing as well. You say "it was never there in the first place." But that's not true. It was there. I pulled up both boarding passes after I checked in.

I suppose we could get into strange philosophical arguments about what the nature of being is on a cell phone, but there were two manifestations on the screen that were boarding passes. Then one of them was no longer there. And proximal cause for it no longer existing was United's action. UA directly caused it to no longer be there on my phone.

Perhaps you are trying to get into a more nuanced discussion about data storage, and whether it's on a local hard drive or a remote server. But for all intents and purposes, the bp was "there" then it was not. To suggest otherwise is perplexing to me.

HNLbasedFlyer

Sorry, should have said removed from the app. Had the boarding pass been saved on the phone, it would still be there.

DenverBrian

Answered in post 28.

innesst

I am confused about all the posts extolling the immense benefits of a paper boarding pass or how screen shots have saved people over and over again. The only place in an airport that the person you are talking to would need your boarding pass but can't just look you up in the system and print one themselves is at the TSA scanner. Not having the mobile boarding pass when you approach the ID check is the only scenario I can think of where there would ever possibly be an issue with not having a boarding pass and where paper might help. In what other scenario could a paper boarding pass save you even the slightest distress? I have lost my paper boarding pass many times and never had any issues with mobile boarding pass. Every time I lost my paper boarding pass I have asked for and been provided a new one in seconds. But the mobile is one less thing do when entering the airport, keep, remember where I kept it, put somewhere on the plane and then throw away.

AeRoSpaceman

Usually after the trip where you are trying to rectify a situation and they require you to send them a copy of your boarding pass which most of the time they do not accept the mobile version.

innesst

How does a boarding pass prove you were on the flight any more than your PRN / e-ticket number that were in your confirmation e-mail?

iapetus

I think that that is exactly the point. Upthread you mentioned feeling violated that United would pull something back off your personal phone. In that context, this more nuanced discussion is pertinent. The assertion is that there was nothing saved to your phone that United "reached out and grabbed". Every time you looked at your boarding pass, you were querying their server. The last time you tried it, there was, unfortunately, nothing to query. Absent this notion of "violation" (which I get, by the way), this detail does seem pretty minor.

AeRoSpaceman

I'm always reminded mostly in the DL threads but have seen them in others to hold on to your paper boarding passes for at least two weeks after you complete your trip in case there are discrepancies. I do hold on to them but never had to use them after completing a trip. I think this is more about flying on partners of your relevant alliance than on your main carrier but I do digress as I have never had an issue.

mozilla

jsloan is right, though, and the nuance is important to understand why that BP was "removed" when it wasn't. When you first requested a BP display, the app contacted UA's backend and received the data to construct a visible display. That data wasn't stored on persistent memory in your phone*, and the validity of that display was until you closed or refreshed the display, and you apparently performed one of those actions.

When you subsequently requested the display again, the process above was repeated to generate a new BP display with a new barcode. However, in this instance, the backend didn't provide data to create the display. It didn't instruct your phone to discard the data for the old BP, you did that, albeit not knowingly.

So the misunderstanding here is that you assumed that requesting the display in the app would somehow store the BP on your phone, which it didn't. There were multiple options available to you to save a BP on your phone, but you didn't pursue them. Do I believe this warrants the disruption and inconvenience to your travel plans? Absolutely not. Pax shouldn't become victims of subtleties like these. But it's important to understand what went wrong.

* Except if you "Add to Wallet," but even here it's Apple's PassKit that stores the BP on your device, UA merely provisions the necessary data.

jsloan

It doesn't. Boarding passes are useless. The idea of crediting a flight based upon a boarding pass is at least 20 years out of date.


I didn't feel it was minor; mozilla did a better job explaining why than I did, so I'm removing my explanation. Thanks!

iapetus

I see your point entirely. But, playing Devil's Advocate, one might shift the focus away from the physical mechanism of obtaining the boarding pass and assert that, since you bought a ticket for United to provide you with carriage, United is obliged to provide you with that document enabling that carriage. (I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but I could see someone feeling as though they could assert that as something owed them.) And we would still be having this conversation.


No one ever responded to my observation above about not always being able to download boarding passes to my Apple Wallet. I hope it doesn't happen just to me (read: I'm sure it doesn't). And thinking more about that and this thread, I suppose that I will always print out a boarding pass when the app does not provide a mechanism to put my BPs in my Apple Wallet!

threeoh

In addition to TSA / other countries' airport security, I've had to provide boarding passes to:

- my travel insurance
- to an airline award program I was crediting to, when I was flying another airline and the automatic credit didn't work
- immigration officials upon entering and upon exiting a country

The assumption that you only need a boarding pass when boarding the plane is a bad one. Having digital boarding passes go away without warning (before or after a flight) makes digital boarding passes less useful and guarantees that people will stick in the "I always print a paper one!" camp.

Personally, I use digital BP for simple domestic trips and paper BP for anything complicated (irrops, int'l trip, interline trip, etc.). I have never had my phone crash or "run out of juice", but I have misplaced my paper boarding pass and had to go get a new one. No biggie.

TIGA31328

Yikes! That is messed up! I print my boarding passes, screenshot them on my phone, and load them into my Walket on my phone as well.

leiserom

Someone made fun of me one time for having a paper boarding pass. Like others I dont trust technology entirely

picturegal

A screen shot of my BP didn't work at Madrid airport - machine couldn't read it. Had to RUN to BA for a paper copy. I'll always print it out now. If the plane hadn't been late I would have missed my flight to Morocco.