e-Ticket Life!
So we thought this “revolution” would have been a great convenience for travelers? Indeed it is! But there are some quirks we the traveling public must note and get used to.
First up, it is not totally electronic as you might have thought – even if you booked yourself via the internet. Why? Well, in the past you used to bring your ticket purchased from the airline or travel agent. Those tickets were very thin and just about 6 inches by 4 inches big. You used to slip those tickets in the pages of your travel book or any paperback, right? Now with the electronic ticket, you bring your printout of the electronic booking – and that printout usually comes in a bond paper 8.5 x 11 inches in size. And many of us do print and bring everything sent to us via email including those policies, terms and conditions. So it’s much cumbersome these days hehehe!
But why do we need to bring printouts to the airport instead of just presenting our IDs and memorizing a booking reference? Well, the guards will need something to see if you are really you and the flight you are saying is true! I did try printing my e-ticket on half a bond-paper and brought it to the airport with me. It was accepted just the same. But it takes extra effort cutting the paper and aligning it in your printer. What a useless activity hehehe! Plus, I gave the airport’s entrance guard a bit of a hard time since he had to squint to be able to read my e-ticket hehehe again – and how bad of me!
Let’s philosophize… and I got this from a 4-year-old nephew who now knows to search YouTube. The authoritative question was… “why is it called e-tciket, it’s not electronic, it’s not computer, it’s just paper?”… and whoa, I had to think and re-think before I could answer that. Hmm, bakit nga ba? Am not necessarily correct but I strained to come up with this explanation: “because the manner in which our tickets were acquired was via the internet (an electronic activity)”. So the little dear had a last word that said something like this… “so it was electronic purchase, not electronic ticket”. And I said yes, but we all still call the printed form as electronic ticket. I heard a murmur… “paper ticket, just like in the bus, only bigger, and so many”. I pretended not to have heard that and proceeded with our check-in.
So what actually happened to us with this e-ticket hullabaloo?
Foremost, the airlines transferred the ticketing activity to us passengers. They produce less of the usual carbon-backed tickets now, so it’s cheaper for them to operate. One of our local airliners eagerly tells passengers that it helps them to lower their fares. I think I believe them. BUT, only this one airline, not the others, okay?!
It’s better for the oldies! The fonts on their tickets are bigger as everyone use 8.5” X 11” paper since that is what’s common. No more squinting or rummaging for their eye glasses hehehe! Peace, mi abuela, peace!
Still for the oldies (okay, count me in), an e-ticket does not fit well in a photo album much less a scrapbook about that last vacation to wherever. It just is ugly with the pics and so wide you’d have to fold it, right? For the convenience of “mi abuela” and the platoon of scrapbookers in the clan, I take a pic of e-ticket so they’re printed as photos too! Aargh!
Over at the office, expense reports have now become bulky, taking too much space on desks and storage areas. Why, do you have time to keep removing all the remaining pages of the e-ticket that stipulates conditions of carriage and such and such rules?
But hey, it is now the grandest time to lose an airline ticket. You just hop in to any nearby internet café, open your yahoo mail and print the ticket again! Or in more bizarre ways, you just pop in at the airline’s offices and ask them to “re-print” it for you – after queuing up for eons (and I hear others charge you for it – haven’t done this yet). Oh, I love Terminal 3, the airline folks over there can do the re-printing before you make the few steps to their check-in counter. Why couldn’t I just present my ID?
Of course you can also throw that damn paper away once you arrive and just re-print it at the office later when processing your expense reports! Just don’t include throwing away what’s left of your boarding pass and the terminal fee receipt if you need to show your financial controller proof for her to re-imburse you on the trip expense hehehe!
But there are some weird moments. Some (not all) check-in agents want to get your printout after checking you in. That am not really sure why, though I always say “no, I still need it” (as if). At one point though, a check-in agent explained that she needed a copy of my e-ticket because their systems were down and she was doing manual check-in. I did not quite get the “connect” on that, but I obliged since she was begging!
Another weird thing… Is your airline ticket the receipt of purchase itself? Ah, I need some more research on this – and somebody please remind me to get the correct answers hehe. How did this question crop up anyway? Well, a friend asked me if I had just purchased anything and she was asking for receipts so those could be entered in a contest sponsored by the BIR (yep, Bureau of Internal Revenue). So I said, I just did and in fact spent a lot on tickets for me and the family. I showed her the printed e-ticket/s. After reading about every word on the so many pages, she shakes her head in dismay. She couldn’t find any receipt number or information about if the merchant (airline) was a VAT or non-VAT entity. Whatever that meant, now I think I need to know more, don’t ya?!
Hmm, if the e-ticket said “this is your provisional receipt”, when do you get the “actual” receipt? I haven’t seen that in any of my travels :)
Hey, there are travel agencies who are now “qualified” (that’s an airline term) to issue e-tickets. What does that mean? You go up to the agency, book and pay for your flight and they issue you a thin sheet of paper also about 8.5” X 11” with your flight details on it, and yes, you go to the airport brandishing that thin sheet of paper as your ticket. Yep, this time you did not book via the internet, but what you have is just the same an e-ticket (okay, paper ticket, in case the nephew is reading this). But one thing I noticed when I did this kind of transaction (also paid with a credit card) WAS, the travel agency issued me a receipt aside from the credit card transaction slip and the e-ticket! Now, now… does it mean that purchases via the internet do not require official receipts? So these airlines are not paying taxes for selling us our tickets? How is this? Anyone please educate me!
Finally, I think e-tickets (purchases via the internet) has eased my life… I must insist on that – even if “mi abuela” is rolling her eyeballs in protest. Yep they’re uglier and do not look good on the scrap book, but they’re damn easier to have than going to a ticket office, getting a number, waiting for centuries to be called AND only to be told that the flight is already fully booked! Yes, if only to avoid this, I will continue with taking shots of e-tickets so that “mi abuela” and her litter of a lot of great-grand-children will have something that look good in the scrap book! Ah electronic tickets…!
Oh well… what do you think?!
First up, it is not totally electronic as you might have thought – even if you booked yourself via the internet. Why? Well, in the past you used to bring your ticket purchased from the airline or travel agent. Those tickets were very thin and just about 6 inches by 4 inches big. You used to slip those tickets in the pages of your travel book or any paperback, right? Now with the electronic ticket, you bring your printout of the electronic booking – and that printout usually comes in a bond paper 8.5 x 11 inches in size. And many of us do print and bring everything sent to us via email including those policies, terms and conditions. So it’s much cumbersome these days hehehe!But why do we need to bring printouts to the airport instead of just presenting our IDs and memorizing a booking reference? Well, the guards will need something to see if you are really you and the flight you are saying is true! I did try printing my e-ticket on half a bond-paper and brought it to the airport with me. It was accepted just the same. But it takes extra effort cutting the paper and aligning it in your printer. What a useless activity hehehe! Plus, I gave the airport’s entrance guard a bit of a hard time since he had to squint to be able to read my e-ticket hehehe again – and how bad of me!
Let’s philosophize… and I got this from a 4-year-old nephew who now knows to search YouTube. The authoritative question was… “why is it called e-tciket, it’s not electronic, it’s not computer, it’s just paper?”… and whoa, I had to think and re-think before I could answer that. Hmm, bakit nga ba? Am not necessarily correct but I strained to come up with this explanation: “because the manner in which our tickets were acquired was via the internet (an electronic activity)”. So the little dear had a last word that said something like this… “so it was electronic purchase, not electronic ticket”. And I said yes, but we all still call the printed form as electronic ticket. I heard a murmur… “paper ticket, just like in the bus, only bigger, and so many”. I pretended not to have heard that and proceeded with our check-in.
So what actually happened to us with this e-ticket hullabaloo?
Foremost, the airlines transferred the ticketing activity to us passengers. They produce less of the usual carbon-backed tickets now, so it’s cheaper for them to operate. One of our local airliners eagerly tells passengers that it helps them to lower their fares. I think I believe them. BUT, only this one airline, not the others, okay?!
It’s better for the oldies! The fonts on their tickets are bigger as everyone use 8.5” X 11” paper since that is what’s common. No more squinting or rummaging for their eye glasses hehehe! Peace, mi abuela, peace!
Still for the oldies (okay, count me in), an e-ticket does not fit well in a photo album much less a scrapbook about that last vacation to wherever. It just is ugly with the pics and so wide you’d have to fold it, right? For the convenience of “mi abuela” and the platoon of scrapbookers in the clan, I take a pic of e-ticket so they’re printed as photos too! Aargh!Over at the office, expense reports have now become bulky, taking too much space on desks and storage areas. Why, do you have time to keep removing all the remaining pages of the e-ticket that stipulates conditions of carriage and such and such rules?
But hey, it is now the grandest time to lose an airline ticket. You just hop in to any nearby internet café, open your yahoo mail and print the ticket again! Or in more bizarre ways, you just pop in at the airline’s offices and ask them to “re-print” it for you – after queuing up for eons (and I hear others charge you for it – haven’t done this yet). Oh, I love Terminal 3, the airline folks over there can do the re-printing before you make the few steps to their check-in counter. Why couldn’t I just present my ID?
Of course you can also throw that damn paper away once you arrive and just re-print it at the office later when processing your expense reports! Just don’t include throwing away what’s left of your boarding pass and the terminal fee receipt if you need to show your financial controller proof for her to re-imburse you on the trip expense hehehe!
But there are some weird moments. Some (not all) check-in agents want to get your printout after checking you in. That am not really sure why, though I always say “no, I still need it” (as if). At one point though, a check-in agent explained that she needed a copy of my e-ticket because their systems were down and she was doing manual check-in. I did not quite get the “connect” on that, but I obliged since she was begging!
Another weird thing… Is your airline ticket the receipt of purchase itself? Ah, I need some more research on this – and somebody please remind me to get the correct answers hehe. How did this question crop up anyway? Well, a friend asked me if I had just purchased anything and she was asking for receipts so those could be entered in a contest sponsored by the BIR (yep, Bureau of Internal Revenue). So I said, I just did and in fact spent a lot on tickets for me and the family. I showed her the printed e-ticket/s. After reading about every word on the so many pages, she shakes her head in dismay. She couldn’t find any receipt number or information about if the merchant (airline) was a VAT or non-VAT entity. Whatever that meant, now I think I need to know more, don’t ya?!
Hmm, if the e-ticket said “this is your provisional receipt”, when do you get the “actual” receipt? I haven’t seen that in any of my travels :)Hey, there are travel agencies who are now “qualified” (that’s an airline term) to issue e-tickets. What does that mean? You go up to the agency, book and pay for your flight and they issue you a thin sheet of paper also about 8.5” X 11” with your flight details on it, and yes, you go to the airport brandishing that thin sheet of paper as your ticket. Yep, this time you did not book via the internet, but what you have is just the same an e-ticket (okay, paper ticket, in case the nephew is reading this). But one thing I noticed when I did this kind of transaction (also paid with a credit card) WAS, the travel agency issued me a receipt aside from the credit card transaction slip and the e-ticket! Now, now… does it mean that purchases via the internet do not require official receipts? So these airlines are not paying taxes for selling us our tickets? How is this? Anyone please educate me!
Finally, I think e-tickets (purchases via the internet) has eased my life… I must insist on that – even if “mi abuela” is rolling her eyeballs in protest. Yep they’re uglier and do not look good on the scrap book, but they’re damn easier to have than going to a ticket office, getting a number, waiting for centuries to be called AND only to be told that the flight is already fully booked! Yes, if only to avoid this, I will continue with taking shots of e-tickets so that “mi abuela” and her litter of a lot of great-grand-children will have something that look good in the scrap book! Ah electronic tickets…!
Oh well… what do you think?!
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