<p>I’m confused. Does this CC problem only happen if you check in at the counter? We usually just use online check in or the kiosk at the airport. Most of the time we just go straight through security and only use the counter if we are checking bags. But even then, we have never been asked for anything other than a Drivers License. When do they ask about the credit card? And what happens when my ticket is purchased by a 3rd party such as my company’s travel agent? I have flown United and never once been asked for the credit card that I recall.</p>
<p>They ask for the credit card when they notice who is checking in isn’t the name on the credit card. The counter agent can likely see if the ticket was purchased by a travel agency, etc. (at H’s work, all business-related travel is booked through the company’s travel agency).</p>
<p>So if one does not go to the counter at all, this would not be a problem?</p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>But this isn’t always an option for everyone each and every time they fly.</p>
<p>the CC issue is a reason to check in online. Then you have the boarding pass and often if you pay for your checked bags when you check in online the bags are cheaper. Then you just drop them off and show your boarding pass.</p>
<p>Remember too that connecting flights in the northeast and mid atlantic area are often delayed in the summer months due to rain. You get a thunderstorm in Philadelphia and the whole eastern seaboard gets messed up and delayed. So, June, July August can be awful traveling in the north east.</p>
<p>Denver is a great airport to connect in. It is in the middle of nowhere (no other big airports close by like in the NE and So Cal) so it usually runs on time. I fly every week and it is rare that my departures are delayed leaving Denver. Philly, Chicago, LaGuardia, Neward, JFK, Atlanta are some of the worst!</p>
<p>Also, you can check faa.gov There is a map function that lists all of the airports and has colored dots to show if there are delays and what the delays mean. This is really helpful to check before leaving home.</p>
<p>Make sure your kid has the reservation code (record locator) for the the flights and has the phone number for the airline. If checking luggage arrive early enough so that the attendant checks it in 1 hour before the flight–otherwise bags may not make it.</p>
<p>Have a back up plan: know where they are flying and what your options are if they get stuck in a city. Its a good idea to wear gear with your college name on it the day you fly. You may meet someone from your school in the same predicament with whom you can share a cab etc.</p>
<p>We always give D cab cash in case she misconnects and has to get a hotel. We make sure there is enough in her bank account in case she needs to use her debit card to pay for a hotel. And we always send her with snacks like almonds, protein bar, apples, that can be dinner should she get delayed or have a short connection where she cannot get a meal.</p>
<p>Ask for help from frequent business travelers. You can tell who they are. If you are not sure where to go or what to do and cannot talk to an airport employee, just ask a business traveler and they are happy to help (usually).</p>
<p>I haven’t heard this mentioned yet, but if you plan on having large carryons (roller bags, mainly), try to choose a seat near the back of the plane (these usually board first). If you are in a later group, they will run out of overhead space (especially Delta; I hate Delta). Also with Delta, they told me on two separate flights that my gatechecked bags would be delivered to me on the jetway, which was completely untrue. They got dumped into baggage claim like everything else. (If they hadn’t told me to wait on the jetway, I would’ve gone to baggage claim in the first place. It’s like they deliberately feed you false information). I’ve never had to gatecheck a bag on any other airline.</p>
<p>I also recommend that if a flight is delayed, you ask the gate agent whether the inbound flight has taken off yet. At a certain point, changing to a later flight is a better idea that waiting for your flight to get delayed 3 hours in 20 minute increments while they wait for the inbound to take off.</p>
<p>I’ve never had an issue with dealing with tickets purchased under a parent’s credit card, even at the counter. As long as the name on the ticket matched the name on my ID, I was never ever questioned about why it was different from the name on the credit card (it helps I have the same last name as my parents I suppose, so if it WAS an issue, I could pretty easily explain it).</p>
<p>For S, he always prints his boarding pass before he gets to the airport but I didn’t want him to have any hassles, especially since his flights went to so many different airports. I figured it was safer for me to just have them add the comment on his record so IF somehow he was questioned by United, he could refer to the comment & not be hassled. </p>
<p>Lately, he has been purchasing his own tickets, so it hasn’t been an issue. :)</p>
<p>I haven’t read this whole thread but I haven’t seen this one suggestion which is to have your child fly First Class or Business Class whichever is offered. Those are the people who are taken care of first and foremost when there is a delay. For us it is just about the same cost for her to fly into a large international airport first class versus the more local one on a smaller, more regularly flight-canceling airport. It just means I drive about 30 minutes more to get her.</p>
<p>I know it can be expensive but if it makes you feel better (especially for the Thanksgiving break) it’s really not much compared to the cost of college.</p>
<p>Wow… Good suggestions all. I’ve been a very frequent flyer, both domestically and internationally. My son too. Everything has to be seen as an adventure. Sleeping on an airport floor can be a badge of honor. But to repeat some of the above, I agree with almost everything (although I don’t think most of us can afford First Class! LOL):</p>
<ol>
<li>Never take a late flight - especially the last of the day.</li>
<li>Try to avoid connections, but that’s hard. If you do connect, allow plenty of time between flights. I’d rather have a longer layover than worrying about rushing and missing a flight.</li>
<li>Airport lounge memberships are rather expensive, and you can be restricted to use that lounge only when you are on one of that airline’s flights. But it’s a great place if you are trapped for some time, and the BEST part of being in one is not the free can of soda or the wireless, but the help you get from the front desk. They can be invaluable at getting you on another flight. So how to afford it? CNN recommends the [Airport</a> Lounge Access Worldwide | Priority Pass](<a href=“http://www.prioritypass.com%5DAirport”>http://www.prioritypass.com). It’s a pass to ALL airline lounges (at least the majors - over 600 lounges worldwide) and they have plans starting at $99 per year. Looks like a great deal to me if you fly often. (ps: you don’t have to use the lounge only when you are stuck).</li>
<li>Always, always, always have the airline reservation number and your record locator with you. Keep it in your cell phone, and the MOMENT the flight gets significantly delayed or it looks like it might have the chance of being canceled, CALL the airline and ask about backup plans. If you wait in a long line at a counter with all the other passengers on that flight, the odds of getting satisfaction are small.</li>
<li>Oops, on the above, always, always, always carry a cell phone and make sure it stays CHARGED UP. Calls to the airlines at busy times can take forever and you don’t want your phone dying.</li>
<li>Be courteous to airline personnel. Yelling does not gain you points with the harried gate agent. But don’t be wimpy, either. If you look like you’ll accept the worst, you might get it. Chat them up a bit (“I can’t believe how some people are treating you… Does that always happen in a delay?”). If you are sympathetic to them, they might be sympathetic to your plight.</li>
<li>ASK about beiong “FIM’d to another airline.” FIM is a “flight interruption manifest” and is essentially a ticket on another airline for the same destination. But FIMs were more practical in the past, when we all had paper tickets. With e-tickets, FIMs aren’t really practical (until the airline get with it and cooperate more in this e-age). Doesn’t hurt to ask, though. It used to work a while back (hey - shows my age), and asking to be “FIM’d” told the agent you knew what you were talking about and must be a frequent flyer.</li>
<li>Remember, the agent (at the gate or on the phone) is - temporarily - your new BFF.</li>
</ol>
<p>And keep in mind the adventure part. My kid - a college junior at the time - was on his way to film a documentary in Nicaragua when he was trapped in the Houston airport for the night. He had just take a Malarone pill (anti-malaria drug) without eating, and was as sick as he had ever been. Of course, as a parent, I was going nuts, but the airport floor and the sickness became part of the adventure story he had for the later telling.</p>
<p>I flew United last night (BOS-ORD). I asked one of the employees at the gate about this whole different-credit-card and she said it was a non-issue – they had that rule years ago, but not anymore. She said if you were really concerned it would be an issue, simply call the airline when you’re making the reservation and have a note put on the record that it’s OK. </p>
<p>I still don’t get when you all think an airline employee would even be looking at the credit card used to make a purchase, when you don’t even have to <em>interact</em> with an airline employee until you’re at the gate presenting your boarding pass five feet from the door. The only person you need to interact with prior to that is the person at security, who has no interest in your credit card, just that your ID matches your ticket.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What airline does this? With the exception of Southwest, IME most airlines board via a designation based on whether you’re in their ff program, how much you paid for the ticket, etc. And most people who are frequent travelers want to be at the FRONT of the plane – not the back.</p>
<p>IME, most board the frequent fliers and other “special” people (American has priority access, other airlines have different names) and then board approximately by where your seat is. It’s to make the plane board more quickly, but it almost never works because the priority people tend to be at the front of the plane. </p>
<p>I hate sitting at the back of the plane also, but if you really don’t want your carryon checked, it’s something to keep in mind. You can always ask the airline how they do their boarding group designations.</p>
<p>Like I said, I’ve only ever had a problem with Delta. I was headed to an interview at the time, so I really wasn’t thrilled with them checking my bag and giving me incorrect information about how to retrieve it.</p>
<p>If your kid (or any traveler) has an iphone, there’s a slick app (TripIt - $1.99). </p>
<p>You send them your confirmation emails and your iphone will then contain your flight, confirmation #, ticket #, Airline #, seats, type of aircraft, flight time, airport info like terminal map, parking info, street info in city, directions to and from airport. Likewise, rental car info contains all the booking info & numbers/directions/maps/etc. Same thing with hotels. Keeps your travel stats (trips, days, distance, etc.) and you can sync it with ical. </p>
<p>For the frequent traveler, the TripIt Pro keeps all your FF airline and hotel numbers and awards–and if awards are expiring soon, advises you of possible options if you want to leave earlier or later, keeps tabs on your flights and if yours is cancelled, they immediately send you 6 possible flight options, sends you gate changes, and has a 1 year free membership in Hertz. Good for business traveler in that one person can manage others travels…</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - obviously this hasn’t happened to you but it happened to my son twice and others on this board. For some reason, he isn’t able to always print his boarding pass ahead of time. Sometimes when we try to print it beforehand - it says to see an agent. I have no idea why this happens occasionally, but it does. So when he goes to check in to get his boarding pass, they asked for the credit card. That’s what happens. And just because you talked to someone that said it was a non issue - obviously it was an issue to the person who had to drive to the nearest airport to show their credit card. What do you think - we are all making these stories up. It happens and we are just passing information along. It doesn’t matter that you “don’t get” it.</p>
<p>About airline boarding zones:</p>
<p>[Guide</a> to Airline Boarding Procedures](<a href=“http://www.seatguru.com/articles/boarding_procedures.php]Guide”>http://www.seatguru.com/articles/boarding_procedures.php)</p>
<p>With regard to club memberships and priority club pass–I have/had one of those but it just entitled me to pay an extra fee (about $30-50/visit) so I could go to one of the limited participating airport lounges. Folks without it could also pay for the privilege for a similar extra fee, so I didn’t and don’t actually see great value in it. </p>
<p>We have never paid for 1st class or business coach for our kids, but that would be nice if you can afford the extra charge.</p>
<p>RE the credit card & United–we were told calling United did NO GOOD, you had to physically hand the credit card to one of their employees at one of their ticket counters or offices with your ID and then they would enter the info in the comments that you OKd the ticket purchase. Since then, I’ve been sure to purchase their tickets with credit cards that they possess. (I guess another option would have been for us to mail our CC to the kids or getting a CC in their names as well on our CC.) For us, I believe this was the summer of 2009, so I don’t know if things have changed. </p>
<p>I have no idea why some others have been able to get clients and/or employers to buy their United tickets using CCs with no problems. I really don’t “get it” either, but had no wish for my kiddo to potentially have serious problems at the airports & did what United suggested to prevent it. We are NOT making this stuff up & I thought it was pretty extreme of United.</p>
<p>Kleibo, my son also can very often not print all his boarding passes when he checks in. It has something to do with subcontracting airlines flying routes to smaller regional airports. Because of this he has gotten bumped more than once. Still, it’s not something we can do anything about, so we follow the advice to never book him on the last flight of the day to our small airport.</p>
<p>Here’s the travel horror story of our kids-traveling lives:
We did not fly as a family when my son was growing up. His only experience traveling by air was a couple trips we took when visiting colleges when he was a high school junior/senior. He was definitely not worldly-wise in this area.</p>
<p>His college is closest (about an hour away) to a smallish regional airport. Where we live is also served by a very small airport. Consequently he always has three legs to travel from his east coast school to our west coast home.</p>
<p>The very first time he flew by himself was to come home for Christmas his freshman year of college. Well, the first flight was delayed by weather (it wasn’t bad where he was, but it was bad where the plane was prior, so it didn’t get to his airport when it should have.) This bumped him to a later flight and he ended up in Philadelphia after the last connecting flight to Portland. He slept on the floor that night next to the luggage carousel. Next morning, of course, ALL the flights were backlogged with stranded passengers. It was the holidays, there was bad weather all over the country, flights were be cancelled and delayed right and left. Finally late in the day he got on a flight, but it was to San Francisco instead of Portland because that year Portland was freakishly locked in a block of solid ice. So he gets to San Francisco, but there are no flights coming to southern Oregon because of weather problems. Only very small regional planes fly into our airport and the ones that could get through were already packed to the gills.</p>
<p>So son decides he’ll catch the Greyhound and make the 15 hour trip by bus. He gets a friend in SF to drive him to the bus station in the middle of the night and buys a ticket. He gets on the first leg --SF to Sacramento-- but when he gets to Sacramento they decide no busses will go north due to icy road conditions. So he stays in the Sacramento Greyhound station that night hangin’ with a bunch of ex-cons. There was this young girl (his age, about 18) who was also stuck and she clung to him like glue. If I was her mom I would have been so happy she had a nice (big) young man to keep her safely under his wing. The two of them spent the night on the floor of the bus station and learned lots of useful things from the ex-cons, like how to make a shive from a toothbrush and how to turn hand sanitizer in alcohol you could drink. In the morning the girl’s aunt from SF drove to Sacramento and rescued them. She dropped son back that SF airport where he continued his wait for a flight, spending another night on the floor. Finally they told him the best they could do was to get him on a flight on Christmas day… if the weather permitted flying into southern OR then. (We couldn’t even drive down to get him because were stuck on the other side of the icy pass too.)</p>
<p>Next day his friend from SF came to the airport and took him to a burger joint where he ate 4 cheeseburgers. Then his friend took him home to his parents’ house. My son stayed there for 3 more days before he could get a flight… even that one he got on standby, and it didn’t even take him to our airport, but another small regional one 2 hours from us. It was the best he could do. We had to borrow this big hairy suburban to even get to that airport to pick him up. It slid off the road and into a snow bank – fortunately no harm to us or the car. A good Samaritan with a tow rope came by and pulled us out.</p>
<p>All in all, it took him 6 days to get home. What a way to be tested by fire on your first solo flight. Anyway, in the years since he has never had any experiences near as bad as that, and even though it’s a long trip, when it passes without event it seems like a breeze to him compared to that first winter. He really knows the ropes now.</p>
<p>Last winter he got bumped (as I said, this happens from time to time because of not being able to get his boarding passes all at the beginning of the trip), and he’s learned to be incredibly sweet and polite to the counter workers. He was quietly called to the side and slipped into first class. Not ever having flown first class before he was pretty bowled over by the free food and the warm, moist hand towels. ;)</p>
<p>Don’t forget in some cities under 18-yr. olds are not allowed to check into a hotel unaccompanied, even if you call ahead and pay with a credit card. Niece was stranded at O’Hare on her way back to MIT last winter and I had to drive up (only an hour) and check in/stay in a hotel with her. She could have slept at ORD but luckily it worked out. Talked to the woman at the hotel desk and she said no hotels around ORD allowed unaccompanied under-18 travelers.</p>
<p>I always buy my son’s tickets online with my credit card (he doesn’t have one), and he has never had a problem checking in. He flies with different carriers, depending on price and availability, but usually with United, US Air or Delta. They have always let him check in without the credit card.</p>