What Does It Mean To Check Into Your Flight Online?

Question

If I do that will I still have to go to the ticket counter to get my paper tickets? I'm flying from Fayetteville, Nc-Sacramento, Ca with a stop in Atlanta, GA this sunday.

Should I check in online? I booked my flight through travelocity.com

Answer 1

There are no such things as paper tickets anymore.

To check-in online got to the airline's website and enter information requested (it varies by airline).   Once confirmed, it will give you a boarding pass which you must print out and take with you.  If you are not checking luggage you can go right to security, if you need to check luggage larger airports will have a bag drop, smaller ones might still require you to go to the counter.

The advantage to checking in early is it usually gives you a chance to confirm/update your seats, sometimes there are better selection.  And for Southwest, which does not have assigned seating, boarding order (and thus seat choice) is determined by the order in which passes are printed, so web checkins always go first.