How Do I Keep My Boarding Passes After the Flight?
Keep a copy of each boarding pass as soon as you have it: scan or photograph the paper pass, and save the mobile pass before you board, because airline apps and phone wallets often hide or remove it after the flight. The barcode carries your name and booking reference, so store the copy privately. In FlightLog, boarding passes stay on your phone and are never synced to a server.
Why keep your boarding passes?
- Missing miles: when a flight is not credited to your frequent flyer account, the airline may ask for the boarding pass or the ticket number.
- Refunds, compensation and insurance: a boarding pass shows that you checked in and boarded.
- A record of your travels: dates, seats and routes you would otherwise forget.
Paper boarding passes
Scan the barcode or take a clear photo of the whole pass before it gets lost. Many passes are printed on thermal paper, which can fade, so a photo is the safest copy.
Mobile boarding passes
Apple Wallet hides single-use passes, such as boarding passes, once they have expired. They are not deleted: Wallet moves them to a separate list of expired passes, where you can view them or put them back, and you can stop this in the Wallet settings, as Apple explains. A pass shown inside an airline app often disappears after the flight, so take a screenshot before boarding if you want a copy that stays.
What the barcode contains, and why not to post it
Under the IATA standard for bar-coded boarding passes (Resolution 792), the barcode holds your name, your booking reference, the airports, the flight number, the date, your seat and your check-in sequence number. With a booking reference and a last name, a booking can often be opened on the airline's website, so blur the barcode before sharing a photo online. See what a PNR is and what the codes on a boarding pass mean.
How to keep them with FlightLog
- Scan a boarding pass with the camera, or import a photo or a screenshot. FlightLog reads the barcode and the printed text. See how to scan a boarding pass.
- The pass goes into your boarding pass wallet, sorted into today, upcoming and past flights, with a search.
- At the gate, the pass opens on a white screen with the brightness turned up, and the barcode is redrawn in its original format so the gate scanner can read it.
Your boarding passes stay on your phone and are never synced to a server. When you export a backup of your journal, FlightLog asks whether to include them. Every feature is free on your 10 most recent flights, and a boarding pass stays available at the gate even beyond that limit.
For a claim, keep the e-ticket receipt and the booking confirmation email as well: some requests need more than the boarding pass.
Ready to start tracking your flights?
Download FlightLog for free and discover all these features on your own flights.