Travelnut

that's odd. I haven't seen a paper ticket in several trips to Europe, can't remember the last one I had. Have flown US Air and Continental the last 3-4 times.

platzman

If you feel as though you're not going anywhere unless you have paper tickets in hand, I can assure you those feelings will dissipate as you're walking through the jetway to depart.

The only time in the last 5 years I have received paper tickets is when the route and/or connecting non-partner airline required it.

CarolA

Are you flying into or out of Zurich? Last summer Delta told me that the Zurich airport would not or could not (can't remember which) use e tickets. It's possible there are others like that.

Beatchick

LOL, platzman, that's reassuring to know! On the upside, at least I can't lose them, right?

Travelnut, I've flown Northwest, Delta & Air France - always paper tickets. It's very difficult to take another airline out of this area unless I want to go to Louisville or to Dayton. Cincinnati is a Delta hub and they seem to have a lock on it.

Christina

It must be the connections, as others suggest. I prefer e-tickets and have had etickets to/from Europe most of the time in the last couple of years. I have an eticket now on Air France RT Paris for this summer. I think I had paper tickets issued through Travelocity last year (no choice), but that involved BA and then a transfer on Iberia.

whiskey

That's interesting Christina, as I fly to Paris, direct, next saturday (yeah!!) with Air France and I was told I could not get an e ticket - paper only. I can't remember the last time I didn't have an e ticket, even for international travel (flights to Sydney and London most recently). I have noticed that quite often there is a small surcharge if you choose paper. I guess they are trying to encourage people to choose e tickets - I recall reading somewhere that the industry hoped to move to entirely paperless tickets by 2007?

zbjoon

h2babe – I had the same experience. As you mentioned the reason for your paper ticket is the Malev portion. I traveled by KLM/Northwest last year from USA to Prague. The flight from Amsterdam to Prague was on Czech airlines and I got a paper ticket as well for the whole trip. When part of your trip is on an airline that does not have the e-ticket option yet, you will end up with a paper ticket for the whole trip. I agree it was uncomfortable.

P_M

CarolA, you have answered my question about why I had to get a paper ticket for my trip to Egypt. I am a huge fan of e-tickets, but recently I booked a ticket to Egypt and I was told it had to be paper because one of my flight segments was on Swiss, which doesn't do e-tickets. I asked if I could have e-tickets for the rest of the trip and a paper ticket only for that one flight. They said no because if any segment is paper, then the entire ticket must be paper. Darn, that paper ticket is just another thing I must keep up with while traveling.

P_M

Please allow me to clarify my last post. The question that CarolA answered was why Swiss does not use e-tickets. After reading this thread, I can now see that many airlines still don't use e-tickets.

SusanP

Here's another one. When I booked my flights for Italy on Continental with my Capital One miles, I was told that I had to have a paper ticket because of the segment on Brussels airline. I agree, I would have rather had the eticket.

Queenie

Just a note to P_M, SWISS does indeed use etickets. I have had them several times throughout Europe and to the US through the Zurich airport.

h2babe

Intrepid - the reason that I made the statement why would I want it to be refundable anyways was because I'm already 100% convinced of my departure time and this trip

CarolA- I am flying into Amsterdam first and then to Berlin. On my way back, I will be flying from Budapest, to Amsterdam before coming back to Detroit.

I definitely hope that they will go paperless soon! It will be one less thing for us travellers to worry about in our mind.

Beatchick

Whiskey, that's funny. I wonder if it's because my trip is so far in advance? Of course, Christina's is for this summer. I ordered mine directly thru the website and it sounds like maybe you ordered yours via phone??? Who knows what the difference is.

Last trip was April 2003 and it was a direct RT flight via Air France - paper tickets were issued to me then and were bought on-line from AF's website.

Curiouser & curiouser, Alice...

starrsville

Nothing really new to say, but I noticed a typo earlier so I'll restate - just seems to be too many variables.

(Spelling corrected for the behalf of spelling monitors)

nibblette

Guess United does the same thing. I am flying on Austrian Air booked through United and also did not get an e-ticket option. I was a little startled at the size of the ticket book. I haven't seen paper tickets since 2001.

h2babe

Niblette, I know what you mean

P_M

Queenie, that's interesting that Swiss does use e-tickets. So why in the heck did AA tell me that? :-? I am using a FF award ticket for that trip, but I've used e-tickets for award travel with both AA and BA in the past. Maybe Swiss insists on paper tickets for award travel?? Or maybe it's something to do with the fact that I'm flying from Zurich to Africa? Oh well, it's already booked, but next time I will ask the agent to double check.

Christina

I don't know why you wouldn't get an e-ticket from Air France, whiskey, as that's all I've gotten out of them in the last couple of years. Did you have some connection on another airline or not buy directly from Air France? I always buy from them on their website and they send me an eticket. I think if you buy through some agent or other website, they might give you a paper ticket.

I think I bought my ticket in Feb. or March for July travel.