Airline travel is stressful enough without having to hassle with paper boarding passes. You’re already dealing with taking off your shoes; juggling your wallet, ID, and laptop; and some security agent giving you the stink eye. If you have an iPhone, obtaining your boarding pass will be one less item on your to-do list when you arrive at the airport.
If you have an iPhone with Apple Wallet installed, you can easily present your digital boarding pass without having to fumble through your bag. Here’s everything you need to know about adding your boarding pass to Apple Wallet.
Dozens of airports worldwide accept boarding passes via Apple Wallet, but not all of them do. Make sure the airports you use support this mobile feature before you begin.
If you get your boarding pass via email, text message, or browser
Once you check in to your flight online — using either the Safari or Chrome browser — the airline can send you a boarding pass via email. Apple Mail users get the extra convenience of having the program recognize the boarding pass and automatically add it to your Apple Wallet. Just in case that does not happen, you still have the option of adding the boarding pass to your Wallet manually.
Step 1: Open the email attachment at the bottom of the email
Step 2: Tap the Add to Apple Wallet button and tap Add.
This may be automatic
Some boarding passes appear automatically based on your device’s location or time. For example, when you arrive at the airport, your boarding pass may show up as a notification on your iPhone screen. From there, just tap the Add to Apple Wallet button to store it.
When you add your boarding pass to your iPhone Wallet app on your iPhone, it automatically gets added to the Wallet app on your paired Apple Watch.
If you use the airline’s app
If you’re the nervous type who wants to make sure you’re not entirely relying on iOS to do its job, download your airline’s proprietary app and use it to check in to your flight. While not all airlines have a dedicated app, most high-profile ones — United, Delta, Southwest, American, JetBlue, Hawaiian, and numerous international airlines — do have apps to help you plan and track your travel. After you check in, look for a button with the Apple Wallet icon to store your boarding pass.
Step 1: Create or log into your account.
Step 2: Input your confirmation code.
Step 3: Observe your boarding pass or an invite to check in to your flight so you can access it.
Step 4: View your app’s interface to find the Add to Apple Wallet button and tap it, and then tap Add.
Once you’ve got the boarding pass into Apple Wallet, you just need to launch the app and present it to airline personnel to tap or scan the contactless reader. For multiple boarding passes, save each mobile boarding pass individually for flight check-in. If you don’t need to keep old boarding passes, be sure to delete past ones so there’s no confusion under pressure. With all that, it’s a very good idea to have a paper copy of your itinerary with you as a backup just in case.
Now that your boarding pass is sorted, check out the best travel gadgets and the best travel apps to get the most from your trip.
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