goodeats21

For sure. I have every one from the last decade of my flights...shoe boxes full of them
I keep thinking at some point I will come up with a good idea for using them.

I have a system where I make notes on the BPs (plane type, etc) and then use them to enter my flights into flight aware when I get time back home.

DELee

Then it's UA actively biasing against FTers who take notes!

David

ualboston1k

What infrastructure? It already exists and likely costs close to nothing to maintain.

tarheelnj

I will miss this feature (screen capture notwithstanding).

1. When wishing to check in at T-24 but not near a printer. The below benefits assume no time or inclination to go to a kiosk on arrival at the airport.
2. Having a printed BP in your shirt pocket after boarding allows you hand a piece of paper (not your phone) to an FA or GA trying to sort out a seat dispute.
3. If I forget when my flight is supposed to arrive, it's simple to pull out the paper BP (my phone is likely in my carry-on if an ULH flight) to confirm.
4. I have a stamp on my BP showing I cleared CLEAR, rather than a CLEAR agent waving at the TSA agent.
5. I don't need to fish out my phone at check-in at the UC or PL.
6. If doing a MR with a quick return, the splash screen still shows your inbound flight even while boarding your return flight (noticed this last month).
7. If at a client location, I can direct the email to an admin who can print my BP for me.
8. If at a hotel with a broken BP or business center printer, I can direct the email to the front desk staff, who can print it on their printer in their back office.

lincolnjkc

... And they still have to maintain it for OLCI so there truly is no cost to keeping it available for app based flows.

I think they're trying to "streamline" the app for infrequent travelers (see also how they've broken post-check-in seat selection and the kiosk CI flow) t the detriment of frequent travelers. Its almost like we need "expert mode" for the app

DELee

"Less Stupid" mode.

David

slippahs

Looking at my old PDFs and the metadata on them, it looks like there is encoding by ABCpdf. Maybe there was a license there that they do not want to pay for anymore?

DELee

Hmm. Checked in for my flights tomorrow. Here's what I see (besides a stupid FT banner that blocks uploading images...):

OK. Chose the "Select email addresses" button and requested emailed boarding passes for two different e-mail addresses.

Received two boarding pass e-mails with PDFs attached. Here's the header part of one:

So far, not an issue for me at least to get e-mailed PDF copies of my boarding pass.

David

lincolnjkc

Yeah, it's only the app that does(n't) do it -- OLCI via the web it's no problem, which is why I think we need the expert/less stupid option -- they clearly went out of their way to remove it from the app (presumably because people who don't care about having the paper were being confused by the option). I always use a kiosk-printed BP for my flights because it feels more comfortable (and it's been years since I've had a working printer at home and I'm not driving to the office just to print a BP) but like others have mentioned I like having the electronic record just in case and also for occasional data mining) -- before the change I could just check in on my phone wherever I was at T-24... now I have to remember to do it at a PC... (though I also have to keep telling myself that I'm already in F, checkin time really is irrelevant... but for some reason I enjoy being sequence #1 when it works out... small pleasures)

DELee

I guess the title of this thread needs to be updated to note that the PDF e-mail option still exists.

David

p.s. Oh wait, as I see a certain moderator has modified the thread title as I'm typing this...

fumje

I did often notice the warning that comes with the .pdf BP, "The attachments are designed to be printed and cannot be displayed on your mobile device." I've never seen someone try to do that in the wild, but could that really be the problem they're trying to solve? Dumb.

lincolnjkc

It's possible -- likewise I've never seen anyone try doing that in the wild but also in the COVID world "get thing with barcode emailed to you as a PDF and either print or show on phone for admission to museum/restaurant/zoo/...." has become nearly ubiquitous that I could see infrequent travelers applying the same logic to UA BPs and not notice the warning.

(Incidentally the reason is not technological but "security" -- the printed BP and kiosk-generate 2D barcodes are not cryptographically signed and relatively easy to tamper with* while the mobile BP barcode is signed to make tampering more difficult -- you'll notice the BP changes every time you refresh it)

*- -- heck, my wedding invitations almost used valid 2D barcodes [I wound up using a 1D barcode because I got lazy and all I needed for admission was the confirmation #..., but most people, including airline employees, didn't spot the difference]

World_Traveler

Looks like the option to have PDF via email is gone from the website now too.

UA_Flyer

If it is gone from the website, then it does sucks.

Not that I really need the printed boarding passes, some of my international clients need to have boarding passes to reimburse my flights. Some don’t take screen shots of mobile boarding passes. PDF boarding passes had been great for expense claims.

bmwe92fan

I got one last week - it seemed to only be available now at the end of the check in process in the desktop version only - I’ve had way too many iPhone issues over the years to fully trust only digital….

Don’t see how they can ever eliminate the possibility of a paper boarding pass - not everyone in the world has a smartphone….