How to Find a Record of Your Past Flights, Step by Step

Where can I look first?

1. Airline loyalty accounts. Sign in and open the activity or statement page. How many years it shows depends on the airline, and some show only miles earned, so flights booked without your number may be missing.
2. Your email. Confirmations, e-tickets and check-in reminders carry the route and date. This is often the most complete source.
3. Your calendar. Airline invitations, travel apps and manual entries can hold flight numbers and times.
4. Credit card and bank statements. They show which airline you paid and when, but not the route. Use them to find the booking email.
5. Booking sites and travel agencies. Accounts with online booking sites, corporate travel tools or your employer's expense system keep past trips.
6. Old apps. If you used a flight tracker or diary before, export it (see below).

What should I search for in my email?

Search your whole mailbox, not just the inbox. These queries work as typed. In Gmail, use the search box:

• subject:(itinerary OR e-ticket OR eticket OR confirmation) has:attachment
• subject:(boarding pass)
• subject:(check-in) from:(airline name)
• after:2018/01/01 before:2019/01/01 subject:(flight)

In Outlook, the search box accepts similar operators:

• subject:itinerary
• subject:(e-ticket) hasattachment:yes
• subject:(boarding pass)
• from:(airline name) subject:confirmation

Replace “airline name” with the airline or its domain. Also try the names of booking sites you used, and search for words in other languages if you travel abroad. Operators change over time, so if a query returns nothing, shorten it. The step-by-step guides for Gmail, Outlook and iCloud Mail show the details.

What if the airline has no usable history?

Ask. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, data-protection law gives you the right to request a copy of the personal data a company holds about you, and the company must normally answer within one month. Other countries have their own rules. Airlines may include past bookings in that copy, though you should expect to wait and the format varies.

Frequent flyer statements record miles, not always flights. Flights on partner airlines or under another number can be missing. Treat the statement as a clue, not the full list.

How do I gather everything in FlightLog?

Once you know where your flights are, FlightLog can read them instead of you retyping them. It is a flight diary for iPhone, iPad and Android. Every feature is free with your 10 most recent flights active, and Premium unlocks the complete history.

• Email forwarding. Forward booking confirmations to your personal import address. The flights arrive as pending flights, and nothing is added until you confirm. See forwarding booking emails and how to log flights from booking emails.
• Calendar import. FlightLog scans the calendars on your phone for events that describe a flight and lets you pick which to add: calendar import.
• Photos of confirmations. Take a photo of a booking confirmation or e-ticket and all its flights are read at once.
• Old boarding passes. Scan the paper or a screenshot: import boarding passes.
• Files from other apps. Import an export from Flighty, myFlightradar24, OpenFlights, TripIt, FlightMemory or App in the Air.

Flights already in your journal are flagged during imports, so a second pass does not create duplicates. Boarding passes and tickets (passenger name, booking reference) stay on your phone and are never synced to the server.

What do I do with the list afterwards?

Once the list is in one place, you can see how far you have flown (how many miles have I flown), plot every route (all my flights on a map) and keep adding new trips. Our guide to keeping a flight diary covers the habit.