Thanks! I’m traveling next month, so starting to think about these things.
Often, though (IME) you use a corporate card (Diner’s, AmEx, whatever) that is linked to your name. It’s just that the company is responsible for payment.
This is mostly, but not 100% true. I ran into problems once with a ticket purchased with my boss’s credit card because it was within 3 days of the purchase. Came close to missing the flight!
Actually, at many airports’ self-service kiosks for quite a few carriers (including by own recent experience American, USAirways and JetBlue), *you do not HAVE to swipe a credit cart first. *Those kiosks are set up to “wake up” on the touch screen itself and the welcome page will give you the choice to move on to a different one where you can choose to check in “by record locator” (6-letter or 6-alphanumeric-character code in your reservation confirmation) and it takes you right to your reservation page. I actually prefer to use that method and not swipe the credit card first in case it may confuse the machine. (If you book directly from the airline your reservation confirmation would have a barcode printed on it that the kiosk can scan.)
You do use credit/debit card, but it need not be the same as used for booking, to pay the luggage fee if applicable. In the end you can always wave for help from the remaining human counter personnel.
So yeah, it should be OK with the printout of the Orbitz reservation confirmation + Driver License, I’ve worked it that way before.
That happens quite often, as well, I’m sure. Whenever I travel for my current employer, our travel coordinator pays for the tickets directly. (I don’t have a company card of any kind.)
I doubt either of our experiences are all that unusual.
Travelsmith, I think. Lemme see . . . yup, here it is:
Voyager Vest
It has pockets inside and out, at least six total I think. It’s rather lightweight, so you won’t get too hot while wearing it. I love it.
I’ve never had a problem wearing my belt through security, and I fly pretty frequently. If you’re a cowboy or wrestling champion, you’ll probably want to take your belt off though.
Many counters are “staffed” with check in kiosks where you check in, pick the number of bags you want to check, followed by a live person tagging the luggage and putting it on a conveyor belt. Then there’s your old-school, fully staffed by humans counter. I prefer the former since it tends to move more quickly.
If you’re not checking bags, do yourself a favor and print out the boarding pass before you go to the airport and head straight for security.
What you’ll need out:
- Check-in: Photo ID and confirmation number (or credit card from which the machine can look up your name.
- Security entrance: Photo ID and boarding pass. Once past the security entrance, pocket the ID, but keep the boarding pass on.
- Security metal detector: Boarding pass in hand. Laptop out of bag. 3.4 oz or less liquids out of luggage and in a single 1-quart Ziploc bag–highly visible (side note: this is a total bullshit worry and I really hope they do away with this soon). Books, jackets, shoes, carry-on bags on conveyor belt. Those behind you will appreciate if you’re prepared to put everything where it goes beforehand.
- Past security: Put everything away; you’ve successfully run the gauntlet. Get the boarding pass back out to get on the plane though.
If you plan on checking a bag, take some cash or a credit card. Most airlines charge you for checking even one bag ($20-$25 is what I’ve seen, plus more if your one bag is over the weight limit).
Traveler’s hint: don’t do what I did last year. Going through O’Hare, I kept setting off the metal detector. My belt was off, shoes were off, no change in my pockets, all electronics in the bin. I finally threw up my hands in frustration and said (to the TSA agent), “Damn it, I have no idea why I’m setting it off!”
That got me sent to the “private” screening area. An enormous man (6’3", muscular) politely asked me if I had a money clip.
“Sure I do! But it’s leather!”
“…and the clip itself, sir?”
“…oh jeez, I guess it is leather wrapped around metal. My bad. Here ya go.”
And then I handed him my money clip with about $100 in cash.
:smack:
He stiffened, stood back. Very sternly, he ordered:
“Take the money out of the clip, SIR”
:smack:
GameHat makes a good point about luggage, but an even better option is to go ahead and pay the fee for any luggage you’re checking online. You’ll save yourself the hassle of having to pay at the airport, plus most airlines give you a couple dollars discount if you pay for your checked luggage online.
If you are going to check luggage:
[ul]
[li]check in on-line[/li][li]pay for baggae on-line[/li][li]print out an e-ticket[/li][li]get dropped off, or walk up to, the entrace to the airport associated with your airline[/li][li]pull out a $5 bill (or $10 if it’s crowded) and make eye-contact with curb-side luggage people[/li][li]you’ll need to give them a credit card, they’ll use it to pull up your info and charge you like $3 per bag[/li][li]now, go directly to security line - no need to mess around with ticket line[/li][/ul]
Yes, it will cost you ten bucks or so - it’s worth it.
Good point. Delta lets me save $2 for checking a bag online beforehand 
…of course the company pays for it either way, but online check-in does save me maybe five minutes at the airport.
That was quite an interesting read. However, I would bet dollars to bad cliches that it only worked because he was an older professional-looking white male. Try that as the 20 year old son of Arab immigrants, a student, or any minority really. That would be much more informative.
Re: Credit cards. In Thailand, if you cannot show the credit card the ticket was paid with, you will NOT be allowed to board the plane (unless you want to buy a whole new ticket on the spot, IF there’s room; your now-empty seat won’t count, as the real you may still show up). This measure was introduced only in the past decade, and I don’t know if this is a follow-on of new Western practices. (Don’t remember if they asked me the last time I was in the US, 5-1/2 years ago.) Best to find out.
99% of the flights I take, my SO has paid with his credit card and is not with me. Not once have I needed to prove how I paid for the flight. And the boarding passes sometimes print my middle initial wrong, or stick ms into my name somehow, and fortunately no one has ever challenged that, though one blogger I follow had problems flying because her hypenated last name was shortened to an initial and the second last name, and the agent wouldn’t accept it. She had to take another flight.
I check in online at home, print my boarding pass, and show the boarding pass and driver’s license at security. They never ask to see the ID again, and the boarding pass gets scanned at the gate…and that’s it. I have a little more fun going through security because I travel with my CPAP, which has to be pulled aside for extra testing. but I’ve never gotten any grief or even been questioned about having an extra carry-on (which the rules say I can have, since it is medical equipment).
I’m not really sure what purpose seeing the credit card serves. They’re not using it as ID. If I can’t show the card, I’m not sure how that would make me a potential terrorist. Terrorists don’t pay for their own flights maybe? But one time early on with this policy, I showed a different card at check-in, a card with my name rendered exactly the same, they tapped some keys on the computer and informed me no, this was not the card I paid with, and I would have to show that if I wished to travel. As luck would have it, I did manage to produce that card after digging around for it; I’d almost left it at home, thinking I had enough other cards, but decided to grab it at the last minute. It’s some sort of national regulation, not something the airlines came up with on their own.